BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares tumbled on Tuesday, with benchmarks in Tokyo and Seoul sinking more than 3%, after Nvidia and other artificial-intelligence -related shares pulled U.S. stocks lower.
U.S. futures dropped, with the contract for the S&P 500 down 0.6% while the future for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.4%.
Computer chip giant Nvidia, at the center of the craze over AI, is due to report its earnings on Wednesday. Worries that stock prices of such companies have shot too high have roiled world markets recently, with big swings in places that rely heavily on trade in computer chips such as South Korea and Taiwan.
Also hanging over the markets is the release due Thursday of U.S. employment data that was delayed by the prolonged government shutdown.
Regional markets felt a chill after the yield on 30-year Japanese government bonds surged to 3.31%, reflecting rising risks as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi prepares to boost government spending and push back the timetable for bringing down Japan’s huge national debt.
The yen was trading above 155 to the U.S. dollar, near its highest level since February. On Monday, the yen fell to its lowest level against the euro since 1999, when the unified European currency was launched.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was down 3% at 48,835.20 by midday, with selling of tech shares leading the decline. Chip maker Tokyo Electron shed 5.4%, while equipment maker Advantest dropped 4.6%.
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In Seoul, the Kospi fell 3.1% to 3,960.82. Samsung Electronics dropped 2.9%, while chip maker SK Hynix shed 5.7%.
In Taiwan, the Taiex fell 2.3% as TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, declined 2.4%.
Chinese markets were not immune from heavy selling.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 1.5% to 25,997.20, while the Shanghai Composite index slipped 0.6% to 3,949.83.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gave up 2.1% to 8,452.50.
On Monday, the S&P 500 fell 0.9% to 6,672.41, pulling further from its all-time high set late last month. The Dow industrials dropped 1.2% to 46,590.24, while the Nasdaq composite sank 0.8% to 22,708.07.
Nvidia dropped 1.8%, though it is still up nearly 40% this year. Losses for other AI winners included a 6.4% slide for Super Micro Computer.
Other areas of the market that had been high-momentum winners also sank. Bitcoin extended its decline, dragging down Coinbase Global by 7.1% and Robinhood Markets by 5.3%. Early Tuesday, it was down 2% at $90,110.
However, Alphabet gained 3.1% after Berkshire Hathaway said it has built a $4.34 billion ownership stake in Google’s parent company. Berkshire Hathaway, run by famed investor Warren Buffett, is notorious for trying to buy stocks only when they look like good values while avoiding anything that looks too expensive.
Another source of potential disappointment for Wall Street is what the Federal Reserve does with interest rates. The expectation had been that the Fed would keep cutting interest rates in hopes of shoring up the slowing job market.
But the downside of lower interest rates is that they can make inflation worse, and inflation has stubbornly remained above the Fed’s 2% target.
A strong jobs report on Thursday would likely stay the Fed’s hand on rate cuts, while figures that are very weak would raise worries about the economy.
In other dealings early Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 42 cents to $59.49 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 43 cents to $63.77 per barrel.
The dollar fell to 155.08 Japanese yen from 155.26 yen. The euro rose to $1.1600 from $1.1593.
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AP Business Writers Stan Choe and Matt Ott contributed.
Ted Danson’s “A Man on the Inside” returning to Netflix for its second season and Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo belting out the “Wicked: For Good” soundtrack are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.
Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Aerosmith teaming up with Yungblud on a new EP, “The Bad Guys 2” hitting Peacock and Jordan Peele looking at Black cowboys in a new documentary series.
New movies to stream from Nov. 17-23
— “Train Dreams,” (Friday, Nov. 21 on Netflix), Clint Bentley’s adaptation of Denis Johnson’s acclaimed novella, stars Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier, a railroad worker and logger in the early 20th century Pacific Northwest. The film, scripted by Bentley and Greg Kwedar (the duo behind last year’s “Sing Sing” ), conjures a frontier past to tell a story about an anonymous laborer and the currents of change around him.
— The DreamWorks Animation sequel “The Bad Guys 2” (Friday, Nov. 21 on Peacock) returns the reformed criminal gang of animals for a new heist caper. In the film, with a returning voice cast including Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos and Marc Maron, the Bad Guys encounter a new robbery team: the Bad Girls. In his review, AP’s Mark Kennedy lamented an over-amped sequel with a plot that reaches into space: “It’s hard to watch a franchise drift so expensively and pointlessly in Earth’s orbit.”
— In “The Roses,” Jay Roach (“Meet the Parents’), from a script by Tony McNamara (“Poor Things”), remakes Danny DeVito’s 1989 black comedy, “The War of the Roses.” In this version, Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch star as a loving couple who turn bitter enemies. In his review, Kennedy called “The Roses” “an escalating hatefest that, by the time a loaded gun comes out, all the fun has been sucked out.”
— Musical theater fans, your time has come… again. “Wicked: For Good” is upon us, and with it comes the release of its official soundtrack. On Friday, after or before you catch the film in theaters, stream its life-affirming compositions to your heart’s content. Might we suggest Ariana Grande’s “The Girl in the Bubble?” Or Cynthia Erivo’s “No Place Like Home?” And for the Jeff Goldblum and Jonathan Bailey lovers, yes, there’s gold to be unearthed, too.
— Rock this way: Aerosmith is back with new music. Following their 2023 “Greatest Hits” collection and just a few months after the conclusion of their “Peace Out: The Farewell Tour” (the band said it would no longer hit the road due to singer Steven Tyler’s voice becoming permanently damaged by a vocal cord injury ) they’re teaming up with next gen rock ‘n’ roller Yungblud. It’s a collaborative EP called “One More Time,” out Friday. The anthemic opening track, “My Only Angel” sets the tone. What’s another one for the road?
— Raise your hand if you still miss “Succession” Sundays on HBO. An acclaimed Swedish drama called “Vanguard” debuts Tuesday on Viaplay that’s of the same vein. It’s a dramatization about Jan Stenbeck, one of Europe’s most influential media moguls. There’s ambition, betrayal and yes, sibling rivalry.
— Ted Danson’s “A Man on the Inside” returns to Netflix for its second season on Thursday. Danson plays a widower named Charles who has found a new sense of purpose as an amateur private detective. In Season One, Charles moved into a retirement home to catch his culprit. In Season Two, he goes back to college to solve a case. Danson’s real-life wife, Mary Steenburgen, joins the cast as Charles’ love interest as he explores the idea of a second chance at romance.
— Keeley Hawes and Freddie Highmore co-star in “The Assassin” for AMC+. Hawes (“Bodyguard”) plays a retired assassin living in solitude on a Greek island whose peaceful life is turned upside down when her estranged son (Highmoore) comes to visit. When the two find themselves in danger they must work together to stay alive. It premieres Thursday.
— Jordan Peele has a new documentary series called “High Horse: The Black Cowboy” coming to Peacock on Thursday. The three-part series examines how stories of Black cowboys have been erased from both pop culture and history books.
New video games to play from Nov. 17-23
— If you bought Mario Kart World when Nintendo launched the Switch 2 back in June, you may be wondering: Do I really need another racing game? Kirby Air Riders comes from designer Masahiro Sakurai, the mastermind behind Super Smash Bros., so it adds that franchise’s chaotic combat to the mix. Each of the competitors has different weapons and each of the vehicles has different benefits and drawbacks. And everyone can use Kirby’s signature “inhale” technique, which lets you absorb an opponent’s skills by, well, swallowing them. So if you like your racing weird, get your motor running Thursday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A team of researchers has uncovered what they say is the first reported use of artificial intelligence to direct a hacking campaign in a largely automated fashion.
The AI company Anthropic said this week that it disrupted a cyber operation that its researchers linked to the Chinese government. The operation involved the use of an artificial intelligence system to direct the hacking campaigns, which researchers called a disturbing development that could greatly expand the reach of AI-equipped hackers.
While concerns about the use of AI to drive cyber operations are not new, what is concerning about the new operation is the degree to which AI was able to automate some of the work, the researchers said.
“While we predicted these capabilities would continue to evolve, what has stood out to us is how quickly they have done so at scale,” they wrote in their report.
The operation targeted tech companies, financial institutions, chemical companies and government agencies. The researchers wrote that the hackers attacked “roughly thirty global targets and succeeded in a small number of cases.” Anthropic detected the operation in September and took steps to shut it down and notify the affected parties.
Anthropic noted that while AI systems are increasingly being used in a variety of settings for work and leisure, they can also be weaponized by hacking groups working for foreign adversaries. The San Francisco-based company, maker of the generative AI chatbot Claude, is one of many tech developers pitching AI “agents” that go beyond a chatbot’s capability to access computer tools and take actions on a person’s behalf.
“Agents are valuable for everyday work and productivity — but in the wrong hands, they can substantially increase the viability of large-scale cyberattacks,” the researchers concluded. “These attacks are likely to only grow in their effectiveness.”
A spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the report.
Microsoft warned earlier this year that foreign adversaries were increasingly embracing AI to make their cyber campaigns more efficient and less labor-intensive. The head of OpenAI’s safety panel, which has the authority to halt the ChatGPT maker’s AI development, recently told The Associated Press he’s watching out for new AI systems that give malicious hackers “much higher capabilities.”
Anthropic said the hackers were able to manipulate Claude, using “jailbreaking” techniques that involve tricking an AI system to bypass its guardrails against harmful behavior, in this case by claiming they were employees of a legitimate cybersecurity firm.
“This points to a big challenge with AI models, and it’s not limited to Claude, which is that the models have to be able to distinguish between what’s actually going on with the ethics of a situation and the kinds of role-play scenarios that hackers and others may want to cook up,” said John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at Citizen Lab.
The use of AI to automate or direct cyberattacks will also appeal to smaller hacking groups and lone wolf hackers, who could use AI to expand the scale of their attacks, according to Adam Arellano, field CTO at Harness, a tech company that uses AI to help customers automate software development.
“The speed and automation provided by the AI is what is a bit scary,” Arellano said. “Instead of a human with well-honed skills attempting to hack into hardened systems, the AI is speeding those processes and more consistently getting past obstacles.”
AI programs will also play an increasingly important role in defending against these kinds of attacks, Arellano said, demonstrating how AI and the automation it allows will benefit both sides.
Reaction to Anthropic’s disclosure was mixed, with some seeing it as a marketing ploy for Anthropic’s approach to defending cybersecurity and others who welcomed its wake-up call.
“This is going to destroy us – sooner than we think – if we don’t make AI regulation a national priority tomorrow,” wrote U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, on social media.
That led to criticism from Meta’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, an advocate of the Facebook parent company’s open-source AI systems that, unlike Anthropic’s, make their key components publicly accessible in a way that some AI safety advocates deem too risky.
“You’re being played by people who want regulatory capture,” LeCun wrote in a reply to Murphy. “They are scaring everyone with dubious studies so that open source models are regulated out of existence.”
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The forecasts are eye-popping: utilities saying they’ll need two or three times more electricity within a few years to power massive new data centers that are feeding a fast-growing AI economy.
But the challenges — some say the impossibility — of building new power plants to meet that demand so quickly has set off alarm bells for lawmakers, policymakers and regulators who wonder if those utility forecasts can be trusted.
One burning question is whether the forecasts are based on data center projects that may never get built — eliciting concern that regular ratepayers could be stuck with the bill to build unnecessary power plants and grid infrastructure at a cost of billions of dollars.
Meanwhile, consumer advocates are finding that ratepayers in some areas — such as the mid-Atlantic electricity grid, which encompasses all or parts of 13 states stretching from New Jersey to Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C. — are already underwriting the cost to supply power to data centers, some of them built, some not.
“There’s speculation in there,” said Joe Bowring, who heads Monitoring Analytics, the independent market watchdog in the mid-Atlantic grid territory. “Nobody really knows. Nobody has been looking carefully enough at the forecast to know what’s speculative, what’s double-counting, what’s real, what’s not.”
Suspicions about skyrocketing demand
There is no standard practice across grids or for utilities to vet such massive projects, and figuring out a solution has become a hot topic, utilities and grid operators say.
Uncertainty around forecasts is typically traced to a couple of things.
One concerns developers seeking a grid connection, but whose plans aren’t set in stone or lack the heft — clients, financing or otherwise — to bring the project to completion, industry and regulatory officials say.
Another is data center developers submitting grid connection requests in various separate utility territories, PJM Interconnection, which operates the mid-Atlantic grid, and Texas lawmakers have found.
Often, developers, for competitive reasons, won’t tell utilities if or where they’ve submitted other requests for electricity, PJM said. That means a single project could inflate the energy forecasts of multiple utilities.
The effort to improve forecasts got a high-profile boost in September, when a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member asked the nation’s grid operators for information on how they determine that a project is not only viable, but will use the electricity it says it needs.
“Better data, better decision-making, better and faster decisions mean we can get all these projects, all this infrastructure built,” the commissioner, David Rosner, said in an interview.
The Edison Electric Institute, a trade association of for-profit electric utilities, said it welcomed efforts to improve demand forecasting.
Real, speculative, or ‘somewhere in between’
The Data Center Coalition, which represents tech giants like Google and Meta and data center developers, has urged regulators to request more information from utilities on their forecasts and to develop a set of best practices to determine the commercial viability of a data center project.
The coalition’s vice president of energy, Aaron Tinjum, said improving the accuracy and transparency of forecasts is a “fundamental first step of really meeting this moment” of energy growth.
“Wherever we go, the question is, ‘Is the (energy) growth real? How can we be so sure?’” Tinjum said. “And we really view commercial readiness verification as one of those important kind of low-hanging opportunities for us to be adopting at this moment.”
Igal Feibush, the CEO of Pennsylvania Data Center Partners, a data center developer, said utilities are in a “fire drill” as they try to vet a deluge of data center projects all seeking electricity.
The vast majority, he said, will fall off because many project backers are new to the concept and don’t know what it takes to get a data center built.
States also are trying to do more to find out what’s in utility forecasts and weed out speculative or duplicative projects.
In Texas, which is attracting large data center projects, lawmakers still haunted by a blackout during a deadly 2021 winter storm were shocked when told in 2024 by the grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, that its peak demand could nearly double by 2030.
They found that state utility regulators lacked the tools to determine whether that was realistic.
Texas state Sen. Phil King told a hearing earlier this year that the grid operator, utility regulators and utilities weren’t sure if the power requests “are real or just speculative or somewhere in between.”
Lawmakers passed legislation sponsored by King, now law, that requires data center developers to disclose whether they have requests for electricity elsewhere in Texas and to set standards for developers to show that they have a substantial financial commitment to a site.
Electricity bills are rising, too
PPL Electric Utilities, which delivers power to 1.5 million customers across central and eastern Pennsylvania, projects that data centers will more than triple its peak electricity demand by 2030.
Vincent Sorgi, president and CEO of PPL Corp., told analysts on an earnings call this month that the data center projects “are real, they are coming fast and furious” and that the “near-term risk of overbuilding generation simply does not exist.”
The data center projects counted in the forecast are backed by contracts with financial commitments often reaching tens of millions of dollars, PPL said.
Still, PPL’s projections helped spur a state lawmaker, Rep. Danilo Burgos, to introduce a bill to bolster the authority of state utility regulators to inspect how utilities assemble their energy demand forecasts.
Ratepayers in Burgos’ Philadelphia district just absorbed an increase in their electricity bills — attributed by the utility, PECO, to the rising cost of wholesale electricity in the mid-Atlantic grid driven primarily by data center demand.
That’s why ratepayers need more protection to ensure they are benefiting from the higher cost, Burgos said.
“Once they make their buck, whatever company,” Burgos said, “you don’t see no empathy towards the ratepayers.”
The film, in which he plays a conspiracy theorist who kidnaps and tortures Emma Stone’s pharma CEO, believing her to be an alien, is the kind that might seem small in scope. On a certain level, it’s three people — the possibly insane mastermind Teddy (Plemons), his cousin and accomplice Don (Aidan Delbis) and their victim Michelle Fuller (Stone) — in a basement. And yet, in the hands of filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and his collaborators, it feels big in scope too, with a booming score, raw performances, grand themes about perceptions of reality and the human experiment and an ever-escalating tension as you try to figure out whom to believe.
“It’s a very entertaining film and a ride,” Stone said in an interview alongside her co-star. “It’s not this heavy meditation on something. There is a bit of absurdism and that stamp that he (Yorgos) puts on everything where there’s humor laced all throughout.”
“Bugonia” arrives in select theaters this weekend on a wave of good buzz and reviews after premiering at the Venice Film Festival. But it’s also coming into a theatrical marketplace that has been, at best, tough on art films and awards hopefuls, no matter how starry or well-reviewed.
Lanthimos’ films have broken through the noise before, especially when Stone is involved. “Poor Things” was hardly an assured box office hit, but managed to make over $117 million — over three times its production budget — by the end of its run.
“Bugonia” marks Stone’s fourth film with Lanthimos and Plemons’ second — they both recently appeared in his “Kinds of Kindness.” And they hope it breaks the current streak of art house fizzles.
Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone pose at the premiere of “Bugonia” in London, Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)
Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone pose at the premiere of “Bugonia” in London, Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)
“It’s a movie that feels made to be experienced in theaters,” Plemons said. “I’d like to talk to all the people out there right now and say, ‘You can do it. You can pause Netflix, and come back to it, but you should see this in a theater.’”
Stone chimed in, laughing: “He said it! He said the controversial thing!”
From ‘Save the Green Planet’ to ‘Bugonia’
“Bugonia” is based on a 2003 Korean movie called “Save the Green Planet!” which also blended elements of science fiction and black comedy in its satirical meditation on truth and corporate misdeeds. It was the era of the coronavirus lockdowns when the idea of making an English-language version took hold, with screenwriter Will Tracy (“Succession,” “The Menu”) behind the adaptation. In Tracy’s script, the setting would switch to the U.S. and the CEO would become a woman.
“Sometimes you make these big decisions like that and it’s not like there’s a lot of premeditation about why and gender politics and any of it,” Tracy said. “It just seemed interesting.”
The gender switch had been made before Lanthimos came on board three years ago, but it was the kind of choice that opened up a door for him to call one of his favorites: Stone.
“So much about the story was intriguing,” Stone said. “This sort of tightrope walk of what she’s being accused of. The tension between her and Teddy.”
Also, she said, there was something exciting about playing the kind of boss who makes big pronouncements about staff feeling free to leave at 5:30 p.m. — unless, of course, they have work to do.
Emma Stone in “Bugonia” (Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features via AP)
Emma Stone in “Bugonia” (Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features via AP)
Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons in “Bugonia” (Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features via AP)
Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons in “Bugonia” (Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features via AP)
“Speaking these sorts of corporate-trained platitudes was really fascinating, to learn how to sort of give the illusion of humanity and connection, but done in a way that’s obviously allowed through HR,” Stone said.
It was Lanthimos’ idea to make the title “Bugonia,” which comes from a Greek word referring to a belief that bees were born out of the carcass of a dead ox. Teddy was always a beekeeper on the side, but suddenly they had an apt extended metaphor to play around with, too.
The non-professional breakout star
At Teddy’s side throughout the ordeal is Don, who seems to have his own misgivings about the plan and causing Michelle pain, but whose first loyalty is to his cousin — the only person who seems to care about him. Lanthimos wanted to cast a non-professional, neurodivergent actor in the role and worked with casting director Jennifer Venditti, who had helped make a documentary about a neurodivergent kid, to find the right person.
Delbis, who is autistic, did not do any training before joining the cast at age 17. Some little changes to the script were made to reflect his way of speaking and his presence. But the point, Lanthimos said, was that “he would bring his own experience and perception and way of thinking and energy. And that was what was so priceless.”
Stavros Halkias, Aidan Delbis, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Alicia Silverstone and Jesse Plemons attend the premiere of “Bugonia” at The Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Stavros Halkias, Aidan Delbis, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Alicia Silverstone and Jesse Plemons attend the premiere of “Bugonia” at The Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
It’s perhaps the most important relationship in the film, and Plemons said that he immediately felt bonded to Delbis.
“We just hit it off very quickly and very quickly he began to feel like my cousin that I wanted to protect and hang out with,” Plemons said.
Fighting for a vision
“Bugonia” is a surprisingly physical film, which everyone learned the hard way. Plemons and Stone worked with stunt coordinators for the big fights and the kidnapping scene. But she didn’t foresee just how much physicality was involved in being a captive, bloody, slathered in antihistamine cream and constantly trying to break free.
“Generally I think it was quite a challenge for everyone because it’s such a constrained film, just being in those few locations,” Lanthimos said. “We started forgetting what day it was, and if it was day or night outside.”
Plemons also had quite a bit of biking and running around for the exciting final 30 minutes of the film.
“Hats off to them for putting up with my writing,” Tracy said.
Emma Stone attends the premiere of “Bugonia” at The Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Emma Stone attends the premiere of “Bugonia” at The Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Stone, who also produced, remembered filming a scene one night in which she’s walking barefoot through a parking lot with ambulances all around her and giving Tracy some grief. What sounded fairly straightforward took on a lot of complications because they were shooting in England and the vehicles needed to be American.
“I was like, ‘You were just sitting there in your room, and you wrote one sentence: Michelle limps across the parking and there are ambulances,’” Stone said. “It was just like, wow must be nice! We spent a lot of money on that one line you wrote. You could have cut it!” Stone said.
She is mostly kidding. It might have been expensive, but they still did the shot. As a producer, Stone says she wants nothing more than to protect the integrity of a film, whether she’s acting in it or not.
“The American film system is really tricky with notes and studios and so many things that come in the way of people being able to realize that vision in the fullest capacity,” Stone said. “There’s no better feeling than getting to help facilitate someone bringing their story to life in the fullest way that they can imagine it being, and trying to be their advocate throughout every step of the process.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Imagine if your bank could move money for you with only the slightest of digital nods for your approval. Or that could tell you that you’re overspending but more importantly know how to address that overspending and put you on better financial footing.
That’s what you’ll get with Moneybot, a new financial services chatbot shown off this week by Cash App that will be slowly introduced into its banking app this winter. Unlike existing bank chatbots, which can handle routine tasks like changing an address, Moneybot can take advanced actions for a customer like creating a savings plan, buying or selling stock, or even evaluating a customer’s spending habits.
Moneybot is part of the next generation of chatbots using what the tech industry calls “agentic” AI, which turns tools like ChatGPT into an “AI agent” that can take action online on a person’s behalf. That means, instead of just writing text, answering questions or recommending products found online, an “agentic” chatbot could also buy a product.
Amazon now has Rufus to go with Alexa, which both either provide information on products or can buy things on customers’ behalf. Walmart is rolling out “Chat & Buy” and Microsoft has Copilot Shopping.
Agentic AI, for being so new, is already causing some controversy. Amazon is suing an AI chatbot company, Perplexity, for alleged computer fraud over AI shopping agents that Amazon says are disguising themselves as human buyers to access customer accounts without Amazon’s permission. Perplexity has denied the claims.
Traditional banks have had chatbots for a while, notably Bank of America’s “Erica” or “Ask Amex” from American Express, but have hesitated to roll out agentic AI. They worry about possible liability if a chatbot buys a product by mistake for a customer or is maliciously used to buy things it is not supposed to.
“Our top priority is to keep our customers’ and clients’ data safe above all else,” said Mark Birkhead, chief data officer at JPMorgan Chase, in an interview with the consulting firm McKinsey back in June on the issue of why the bank hasn’t rolled out agentic AI yet to customers.
Cash App on the other hand is diving in head first.
One notable feature of Moneybot is its prompts and suggestions. When Moneybot launches, it does an analysis of the the customer’s transactions and spending and gives them independent recommendations on actions they could take. Unlike other bank chatbots, which take you to other parts of a banks’ website, Moneybot’s transactions and analysis happen inside a single screen. Cash App’s executives see Moneybot becoming the primary way people interact with CashApp in the future.
Want to know your biggest spending categories instantly and how to cut your spending? Moneybot gives several suggestions in a matter of seconds, showing you the merchants you spent with. Need to save $1,000 toward a vacation in six months? Moneybot creates an automated savings plan for you with only a couple of prompts.
Want to put money into the stock market? It takes only a request and confirmation in Moneybot, which will buy Tesla stock for you or even bitcoin. Moneybot will remind you, however, that it does not give investing advice.
Moneybot may even anticipate why the customer is opening up the app in the first place.
“We have such a deep understanding of who you are that it’s almost a failure if we have to rely on customers to ask right questions,” said Owen Jennings, executive officer and business lead at Block, in an interview.
Company officials pointed out that, despite having these agent abilities, Moneybot will still need active confirmation from the user to do its money-moving tasks. But that confirmation is often just a simple push of a button or a “yes” in a chat box.
Cash App executives say Moneybot uses three different AI models, choosing the most appropriate one for the customer’s question. Some are easier to recognize, including the eager-to-please tone that often comes with ChatGPT 5.
A Cash App employee demo’ing Moneybot, much to his chagrin, showed that he spent heavily at Nordstrom last month. Moneybot kindly suggested he might want to cut back on his clothing purchases if he needs to save money.
There are things Moneybot cannot do because of the legal and privacy questions that have yet to be answered. Moneybot won’t offer you a loan but feels like it could do so if the toggle were ever turned on.
Because of the way the prompts are written, Cash App employees acknowledged there could be privacy and legal implications with what Moneybot suggests if appropriate guardrails are not put into place.
Policymakers have raised concerns about how these chatbots could steer customers into one product or another, even if one product may not be in the best interest for the customer. For instance, what’s to stop a future version of Moneybot from favoring a buy now, pay later loan from AfterPay — also owned by Cash App’s parent company Block — for purchases instead of Affirm or Klarna?
“If firms cannot manage using a new technology in a lawful way, then they should not use the technology,” said Rohit Chopra in 2024, when he was director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Chopra spent much of his tenure at the bureau raising concerns about the adoption of AI in financial services.
In the meantime, asking for a loan inside Moneybot will transfer a customer to a human agent.
Not surprisingly, Moneybot has the usual disclosure found at the bottom of most chatbots these days: Artificial intelligence can make mistakes. Somehow, that feels a bit more important in banking than an AI chatbot accidentally providing the wrong amount of cumin in a fajita recipe or buying the wrong size of shirt.
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An earlier version of this story misspelled Moneybot.
ATLANTA (AP) — It was the worst summer in years. Sechita McNair’s family took no vacations. Her younger boys didn’t go to camp. Her van was repossessed, and her family nearly got evicted — again.
But she accomplished the one thing she wanted most. A few weeks before school started, McNair, an out-of-work film industry veteran barely getting by driving for Uber, signed a lease in the right Atlanta neighborhood so her eldest son could stay at his high school.
As she pulled up outside the school on the first day, Elias, 15, stepped onto the curb in his new basketball shoes and cargo pants. She inspected his face, noticed wax in his ears and grabbed a package of baby wipes from her rental car. She wasn’t about to let her eldest, with his young Denzel Washington looks, go to school looking “gross.”
He grimaced and broke away.
“No kiss? No hugs?” she called out.
Elias waved and kept walking. Just ahead of him, at least for the moment, sat something his mother had fought relentlessly for: a better education.
The link between where you live and where you learn
Sechita McNair, center, and sons Derrick McNair-White, left, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, right, walk to catch a city bus in Jonesboro, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair, center, and sons Derrick McNair-White, left, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, right, walk to catch a city bus in Jonesboro, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Last year, McNair and her three kids were evicted from their beloved apartment in the rapidly gentrifying Old Fourth Ward neighborhood of Atlanta. Like many evicted families, they went from living in a school district that spends more money on students to one that spends less.
Thanks to federal laws protecting homeless and evicted students, her kids were able to keep attending their Atlanta schools, even though the only housing available to them was in another county 40 minutes away. They also had the right to free transportation to those schools, but McNair says the district didn’t tell her about that until the school year ended. Their eligibility to remain in those schools expired at the end of last school year.
Still wounded by the death of his father and multiple housing displacements, Elias failed two classes last year, his freshman year. Switching schools now, McNair fears, would jeopardize any chance he has of recovering his academic life. “I need this child to be stable,” she says.
Bianca Vázquez Toness covers the intersection of education and children’s well-being. She led the nation in showing how many students were missing school after the pandemic — work that was honored as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
With just one week before school started, McNair drove extra Uber hours, borrowed money, secured rental assistance and ignored concerns about the apartment to rent a three-bedroom in the Old Fourth Ward. At $2,200 a month, it was the only “semi-affordable” apartment in the rapidly gentrifying ward that would rent to a single mom with a fresh eviction on her record.
On Zillow, the second-floor apartment, built in 2005, looked like a middle-class dream with its granite countertops, crown molding and polished wood floors. But up close, the apartment looked abused and held secrets McNair was only beginning to uncover.
The first sign something was wrong came early. When she first toured the apartment, it felt rushed, like the agent didn’t want her to look too closely. Then, even as they told her she was accepted, the landlord and real estate agent wouldn’t send her a “welcome letter” laying out the agreement, the rent and deposit she would pay. It seemed like they didn’t want to put anything in writing.
When the lease came, it was full of errors. She signed it anyway. “We’re back in the neighborhood!” she said. Elias could return to Midtown High School.
But even in their triumph, no one in the family could relax. Too many things were uncertain. And it fell to McNair — and only McNair — to figure it out.
The first day back
Sechita McNair, left, talks to her oldest son, Elias Washington, before he walks into Midtown High School for the first day of school on Aug. 4 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair, left, talks to her oldest son, Elias Washington, before he walks into Midtown High School for the first day of school on Aug. 4 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Midtown is a high school so coveted that school administrators investigate student residency throughout the year to keep out kids from other parts of Atlanta and beyond. For McNair, the day Elias returned to the high school was a momentous one.
“Freedom!” McNair declared after Elias disappeared into the building. Without child care over the summer, McNair had struggled to find time to work enough to make ends meet. Now that the kids were back in class, McNair could spend school hours making money and resolving some of the unsettled issues with her new apartment.
McNair, the first person in her family to attend college, studied theater management. Her job rigging stage sets was lucrative until the writers’ and actors’ strike and other changes paralyzed the film industry in 2023. The scarcity of work on movie sets, combined with her tendency to take in family and non-family alike, wrecked her home economy.
The family was evicted last fall when McNair fell behind on rent because of funeral expenses for her foster daughter. The teen girl died from an epileptic seizure while McNair and everyone else slept. Elias found her body.
McNair attributes some of Elias’s lack of motivation at school to personal trauma. His father died after a heart attack in 2023, on the sidelines of Elias’s basketball practice.
Elias Washington talks to a friend on the phone as he walks to Midtown High School in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Elias Washington talks to a friend on the phone as he walks to Midtown High School in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
On his first day back at school this August, Elias appeared excited but tentative. He watched as the seniors swanned into school wearing gold cardboard crowns, a Midtown back-to-school tradition, and scanned the sidewalk for anyone familiar.
If Elias had his way, his mom would homeschool him. She’s done it before. But now that he’s a teenager, it’s harder to get Elias to follow her instructions. As the only breadwinner supporting three kids and her disabled uncle, she has to work.
Elias hid from the crowds and called up a friend: “Where you at?” The friend, another sophomore, was still en route. Over the phone, they compared outfits, traded gossip about who got a new hairdo or transferred. When Elias’s friend declared this would be the year he’d get a girlfriend, Elias laughed.
When it was time to go in, Elias drifted toward the door with his head down as other students flooded past.
The after-school pickup
Hours later, he emerged. Despite everything McNair had done to help it go well — securing the apartment, even spending hundreds of dollars on new clothes for him — Elias slumped into the backseat when she picked him up after class.
“School was so boring,” he said.
“What happened?” McNair asked.
“Nothing, bro. That was the problem,” Elias said. “I thought I was going to be happy when school started, since summer was so horrible.”
Of all of the classes he was taking — geometry, gym, French, world history, environmental science — only gym interested him. He wished he could take art classes, he said. Elias has acted in some commercials and television programs, but chose a science and math concentration, hoping to study finance someday.
After dinner at Chick-fil-A, the family visited the city library one block from their new apartment. While McNair spoke to the librarian, the boys explored the children’s section. Malachi, 6, watched a YouTube video on a library computer while Derrick, 7, flipped through a book. Elias sat in a corner, sharing video gaming tips with a stranger he met online.
“Those people are learning Japanese,” said McNair, pointing to a group of adults sitting around a cluster of tables. “And this library lets you check out museum passes. This is why we have to be back in the city. Resources!”
McNair wants her children to go to well-resourced schools. Atlanta spends nearly $20,000 per student a year, $7,000 more than the district they moved to after the eviction. More money in schools means smaller classrooms and more psychologists, guidance counselors and other support.
But McNair, who grew up in New Jersey near New York City, also sees opportunities in the wider city of Atlanta. She wants to use its libraries, e-scooters, bike paths, hospitals, rental assistance agencies, Buy Nothing groups and food pantries.
“These are all resources that make it possible to raise a family when you don’t have support,” she said. “Wouldn’t anyone want that?”
Support is hard to come by
Sechita McNair, right, and sons Derrick McNair-White, center, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, left, ride an escalator to take the MARTA train on June 11 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair, right, and sons Derrick McNair-White, center, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, left, ride an escalator to take the MARTA train on June 11 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
On the way home, the little boys fall asleep in the back seat. Elias asks, “So, is homeschooling off the table?”
McNair doesn’t hesitate. “Heck yeah. I’m not homeschooling you,” she says lightly. “Do you see how much of a financial bind I’m in?”’
McNair pulls into the driveway in Jonesboro, the suburb where the family landed after their eviction. Even though the family wants to live in Atlanta, their stuff is still here. It’s a neighborhood of brick colonials and manicured lawns. She realizes it’s the dream for some families, but not hers. “It’s a support desert.”
As they get out of the car, Elias takes over as parent-in-charge. “Get all of your things,” he directs Malachi and Derrick, who scowl as Elias seems to relish bossing them around. “Pick up your car seats, your food, those markers. I don’t want to see anything left behind.” Elias would be responsible for making the boys burritos, showering them and putting them to sleep.
McNair heads out to drive for Uber. That’s what is necessary to pay $450 a week to rent the car and earn enough to pay her rent and bills.
But while McNair is out, she can’t monitor Elias. And a few days after he starts school, Elias’s all-night gaming habit has already drawn teachers’ attention.
“I wanted to check in regarding Elias,” his geometry teacher writes during the first week of school. “He fell asleep multiple times during Geometry class this morning.”
Elias had told the teacher he went to bed around 4 a.m. the night before. “I understand that there may be various reasons for this, and I’d love to work together to support Elias so he can stay focused and successful in class.”
A few days later, McNair gets a similar email from his French teacher.
That night, McNair drives around Atlanta, trying to pick up enough Uber trips to keep her account active. But she can’t stop thinking about the emails. “I should be home making sure Elias gets to bed on time,” she says, crying. “But I have to work. I’m the only one paying the bills.”
Obstacles keep popping up
Sechita McNair arrives at her new Atlanta apartment on Aug. 1 to find a door that she says looks like it was forced open. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair arrives at her new Atlanta apartment on Aug. 1 to find a door that she says looks like it was forced open. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Ever since McNair rented the Atlanta apartment, her bills had doubled. She wasn’t sure when she’d feel safe giving up the house she’d been renting in Clayton County, given the problems with the Atlanta apartment. For starters, she was not even sure it was safe to spend the night there.
A week after school started in August, McNair dropped by the apartment to check whether the landlords had made repairs. At the very least, she wanted more smoke detectors.
She also wanted them to replace the door, which looked like someone had forced it open with a crowbar. She wanted a working fridge and oven. She wanted them to secure the back door to the adjoining empty apartment, which appeared to be open and made her wonder if there were pests or even people squatting there.
But on this day, her keys didn’t work.
She called 911. Had her new landlords deliberately locked her out?
When the police showed up outside the olive-green, Craftsman-style fourplex, McNair scrolled through her phone to find a copy of her lease. Then McNair and the officer eyed a man walking up to the property. “The building was sold in a short sale two weeks ago,” he told McNair. The police officer directed the man to give the new keys to McNair.
The next day, McNair started getting emails from an agent specializing in foreclosures, suggesting the new owners wanted McNair to leave. “The bank owns the property and now you are no longer a tenant of the previous owner,” she wrote. The new owner “might” offer relocation assistance if McNair agreed to leave.
McNair consulted attorneys, who reassured her: It might be uncomfortable, but she could stay. She needed to try to pay rent, even if the new owner didn’t accept it.
So McNair messaged the agent, asking where she should send the rent, and requested the company make necessary repairs. Eventually, the real estate agent stopped responding.
Some problems go away, but others emerge
Finally, McNair moved her kids and a few items from the Jonesboro house to the Atlanta apartment. She didn’t allow Elias to bring his video game console to Atlanta. He started going to bed around 11 p.m. most nights. But even as she solved that problem, others emerged.
It was at Midtown’s back-to-school night in September that McNair learned Elias was behind in most of his classes. Some teachers said maybe Midtown wasn’t the right school for Elias.
Perhaps they were right, McNair thought. She’d heard similar things before.
Sechita McNair, center, rests in the summer heat as she works to repair her family van, while adopted son Derrick McNair-White, 6, right, plays in the driveway of their rented home in Jonesboro, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair, center, rests in the summer heat as she works to repair her family van, while adopted son Derrick McNair-White, 6, right, plays in the driveway of their rented home in Jonesboro, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Elias also didn’t want to go to school. He skipped one day, then another. McNair panicked. In Georgia, parents can be sent to jail for truancy when their kids miss five unexcused days.
McNair started looking into a homeschooling program run by a mother she follows on Facebook. In the meantime, she emailed and called some Midtown staff for advice. She says she didn’t get a response. Finally, seven weeks after the family’s triumphant return to Midtown, McNair filed papers declaring her intention to homeschool Elias.
It quickly proved challenging. Elias wouldn’t do any schoolwork when he was home alone. And when the homeschooling group met twice a week, she discovered, they required parents to pick up their children afterward instead of allowing them to take public transit or e-scooters. That was untenable.
Elias wanted to stay at home and offered to take care of McNair’s uncle, who has dementia. “That was literally killing my soul the most,” said McNair. “That’s not a child’s job.”
Hell, no, she told him — you only get one chance at high school.
Elias Washington watches a video on his phone as he rests on a bed left by a previous tenant in his family’s new apartment in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Elias Washington watches a video on his phone as he rests on a bed left by a previous tenant in his family’s new apartment in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Then, one day, while she was loading the boys’ clothes into the washing machine at the Atlanta apartment, she received a call from an unknown Atlanta number. It was the woman who heads Atlanta Public Schools’ virtual program, telling her the roster was full.
McNair asked the woman for her opinion on Elias’s situation. Maybe she should abandon the Atlanta apartment and enroll him in the Jonesboro high school.
Let me stop you right there, the woman said. Is your son an athlete? If he transfers too many times, it can affect his ability to play basketball. And he’d probably lose credits and take longer to graduate. He needs to be in school — preferably Midtown — studying for midterms, she said. You need to put on your “big mama drawers” and take him back, she told McNair.
The next day, Elias and his mother pulled up to Midtown. Outside the school, Elias asked if he had to go inside. Yes, she told him. This is your fault as much as it’s mine.
Now, with Elias back in school every day, McNair can deliver food through Uber Eats without worrying about a police officer asking why her kid isn’t in school. If only she had pushed harder, sooner, for help with Elias, she thought. “I should have just gone down to the school and sat in their offices until they talked to me.”
Sechita McNair, center, and sons Derrick McNair-White, right, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, left, have breakfast on the steps of Midtown High School in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sechita McNair, center, and sons Derrick McNair-White, right, and Malachi McNair-Nesbitt, left, have breakfast on the steps of Midtown High School in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
But it was easy for her to explain why she hadn’t. “I was running around doing so many other things just so we have a place to live, or taking care of my uncle, that I didn’t put enough of my energy there.”
She wishes she could pay more attention to Elias. But so many things are pulling at her. And as fall marches toward winter, her struggle continues. After failing to keep up with the Jonesboro rent, she’s preparing to leave that house before the landlord sends people to haul her possessions to the curb.
As an Uber driver, she has picked up a few traumatized mothers with their children after they got evicted. She helped them load the few things they could fit into her van. As they drove off, onlookers scavenged the leftovers.
She has promised herself she’d never let that happen to her kids.
Dotted Line with Center Square
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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s the most wonderful time of the year, unless you want to find the perfect gifts for tech lovers.
There’s a lot of slop to sift through as we get closer to the holidays, many interests to appeal to and a whole bunch of deals-that-aren’t-deals flashing before our screens. So here’s a guide — and some sales — to help you get started on your gift shopping journey.
For your gamers
The Nintendo Switch 2 was the biggest and most anticipated console launch of 2025, and if history is any indication, it will be increasingly harder to find as Christmas approaches. But for the gamers in your life — both young and adult — this is the gift to get.
Nintendo’s Black Friday deals for the console and games have been announced but the best bang for your buck may be the console bundles. The Switch 2 is still available as just the console only for $449 or bundled with Mario Kart World for $499. A new $499 bundle is now available where the console is packaged with Pokémon Legends: Z-A. Games retail for about $70 a piece, so you do save a little with bundles.
Need a new iPhone?
The iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro Max captured the headlines this year when the new lineup launched, but the base iPhone 17 received an upgraded camera (telephoto lens), more base storage and a longer battery life. Given the price for this model hasn’t changed, you’re straight up getting more tech for the same price. If your gift recipient’s current iPhone is a few generations behind, this is a good time to consider an upgrade.
What about AI? The iPhone 17 doesn’t make as many leaps into the technology as its predecessor, but the new iOS and processer prepares the phone for any advancements that may come in 2026. The iPhone 17 retails at $800.
Or maybe you’d like a foldable phone?
If you or someone in your life has ever been curious about a foldable phone, consider Samsung’s newest Galaxy Z Fold 7 model. This phone solves many of the issues users have been concerned about since fold phones hit the market: It’s much thinner and lighter than its predecessors — 0.17 inches thick when unfolded and less than half an inch folded — and it weighs slightly less than half a pound, impressive considering they boosted the size of all the screens.
But the price of a fold phone remains steep compared to the flagship iPhone and Galaxy devices. The Z Fold 7 currently is running a sale on its site but normally retails starting at $1,999.
Planning to shoot more video or pictures?
For anyone interested in doing more filming or photography with their mobile device, this supremely portable tripod by SelfieShow offers solid stability even when extended to its max height of 71 inches. The mounting arm also offers a wide array of positioning for shooters on the go. And the rig can collapse into a retractable selfie stick for even more functionality and portability.
For aspiring influencers, podcasters or vloggers in your life, try these wireless microphones by Hollyland. The Lark M2 Wireless Microphone mics are easy to use, have good range and do well in filtering out background noise. You can easily attach these to clothes for interviews or even hold them for the tiny mic lifestyle. Best of all, it comes with two mics per order.
For those TV lovers who just want a little more for their gaming or cinematic experience, consider Samsung’s S90F OLED TV. This higher-end TV offers excellent contrast, colors and Ethernet performance. It also can act as a giant monitor if you want to plug your PC/gaming console into it, offering VRR support up to 144Hz on all four of its HDMI ports. For those who like to add sound systems or other peripherals to their TV, it also offers an additional three USB-A ports and one USB-C port.
Normally this TV retails around $1,800, but an ongoing holiday promo (until Dec. 1) puts it, at 55 inches, at $1,199.99.
Typing on the go
Portability is core to the Logitech Pebble 2 wireless keyboard and mouse combo. This minimalist and highly functional offering by Logitech will satisfy on-the-go users who are looking for a silent, but still tactile, Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. It also offers a one-tap, multi-device switching option if you’ve already paired it with said devices — which include Android tablets and Apple iPads in addition to laptops — a great feature if you’re multitasking.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says his $300 million White House ballroom will be paid for “100% by me and some friends of mine.”
The White House released a list of 37 donors, including crypto billionaires, charitable organizations, sports team owners, powerful financiers, tech and tobacco giants, media companies, longtime supporters of Republican causes and several of the president’s neighbors in Palm Beach, Florida.
It’s incomplete. Among others, the list doesn’t include Carrier Group, which offered to donate an HVAC system for the ballroom, and artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia, whose CEO, Jensen Huang, publicly discussed its donation.
The White House hasn’t said how much each donor is giving, and almost none was willing to divulge that. Very few commented on their contributions when contacted by The Associated Press.
A senior White House official said the list has grown since it was first released in October, but some companies don’t want to be publicly named until required to do so by financial disclosure regulations. No foreign individuals or entities were among the donors, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that haven’t been made public.
Here’s a look at the divulged donors:
Tech giants (8):
Amazon Background: Trump was once highly critical of company founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, but has been much less so lately. Amazon donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, an event attended by Bezos. Its video streaming service paid $40 million to license a documentary about first lady Melania Trump. Its cloud-based computing operation, Amazon Web Services, is a major government contractor.
Apple Background: After an up-and-down relationship during Trump’s first term, CEO Tim Cook has sought to improve his standing with the president this time. Before returning to the White House, Trump hosted Cook at his Palm Beach estate, Mar-a-Lago, and said he had spoken with Cook about the company’s long-running tax battles with the European Union. Cook also donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. In the spring, Trump threatened the computing giant with tariffs after Apple announced plans to build manufacturing facilities in India. In August, Cook presented the president with a customized glass plaque with a gold base as the CEO announced plans to bring Apple’s total investment commitment in U.S. manufacturing over four years to $600 billion.
Google Background: During his first term, Trump’s administration sued Google for antitrust violations. While a candidate last year, Trump suggested he might seek to break up the search engine behemoth. Once Trump won the election, Google donated $1 million to his inauguration, and its CEO, Sundar Pichai, joined other major tech executives in attending the ceremony. Google’s subsidiary, YouTube, agreed in September to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit with Trump after it suspended his account following the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. According to court filings, $22 million of that went to the Trust for the National Mall, which can help pay for ballroom construction.
HP Background: An original Silicon Valley stalwart, the company donated to Trump’s inaugural fund. HP ‘s CEO, Enrique Lores, participated in a White House roundtable event in September. Lores also previously met with President Joe Biden at the White House on multiple occasions as top CEOs endorsed that administration’s economic plans.
Meta Background: Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had been critical of Trump going back to 2016, and Facebook suspended Trump for years after the Jan. 6 insurrection. This time around, Meta contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, and Zuckerberg attended.
Micron Technology Background: The producer of advanced memory computer chips announced an April 2024 agreement with the Biden administration to provide $6.1 billion in government support for Micron to make chips domestically. Then, in June, Micron pledged $200 billion for U.S. memory chip manufacturing expansion under Trump. But at least $120 billion of that involved holdovers first announced during Biden’s administration.
Microsoft Background: The company donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, twice what it spent for Biden’s or for Trump’s first inauguration. CEO Satya Nadella has also met with Trump numerous times, as Microsoft has supported the administration’s relaxation of regulations on artificial intelligence. He met previously with Biden, too. Trump has called for Microsoft’s president of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, to be fired because she was a deputy attorney general under Biden when the Justice Department led several investigations against Trump.
Palantir Technologies Background: Co-founded by billionaire libertarian Peter Thiel, the firm concentrates on artificial intelligence and machine learning. It has seen profits soar thanks to lucrative defense and other federal contracts.
Ripple Background: In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped a lawsuit filed during Trump’s first term, which accused the company of violating securities laws by selling XRP crypto coins without a securities registration. In his second term, Trump has eased regulations on digital assets, repealing an SEC accounting rule and a previous presidential executive order mandating more federal study and proposed changes to crypto regulations.
Tether Background: A cryptocurrency company and major stablecoin issuer, Tether paid fines for misleading investors. CEO Paolo Ardoino has been to Trump’s White House, and, in April, the company hired former Trump administration crypto policy official Bo Hines to lead its domestic expansion efforts.
Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss Background: Each Winklevoss twin is listed as a separate donor. Best known as Zuckerberg’s chief antagonists in “The Social Network,” the brothers founded the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange. Biden’s SEC sued Gemini for selling unregistered securities, but the case has been paused under Trump.
Energy and industrial (4):
Caterpillar Background: The equipment maker ‘s PAC has donated to candidates from both parties, but given more to Republicans. It has also said publicly that Trump’s tariffs, some of which the administration has now eased, could increase its costs and hurt earnings.
NextEra Energy Background: NextEra is the world’s largest electric utility holding company. Trump says he’ll work to ensure tech giants can secure their own sources of electricity to power data centers, especially as they expand energy-hogging artificial intelligence operations. Google recently entered into an agreement to buy power from a shuttered nuclear power plant in Iowa owned by NextEra, which the company plans to bring back online in 2029.
Paolo Tiramani Background: An American industrial designer who has donated to Trump’s political campaigns. Tiramani, with his son, runs BOXABL, a firm specializing in modular, prefabricated homes.
Union Pacific Background: Trump has endorsed the company’s proposed $85 billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern, which would be the largest-ever rail merger. It also will be up to the president to appoint two more Republican members of the Surface Transportation Board, who will ultimately decide whether to approve the merger. In August, Trump fired one of the two Democratic members of the board.
Philanthropy (3):
Adelson Family Foundation Background: Founded to strengthen the state of Israel and the Jewish people, the foundation was created by Miriam Adelson, the majority owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, close Trump ally and longtime GOP megadonor. She’s also the widow of Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire founder and owner of Las Vegas Sands.
Betty Wold Johnson Foundation Background: Based in Palm Beach, the foundation supports health, arts and culture initiatives, as well as environmental and educational programs. It’s named in honor of the mother of New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Kingdom during his first term.
Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation Background: The nonprofit based in Lake Worth Beach, near Palm Beach, focuses on promoting health care, social justice, the arts and community initiatives. Isaac is an Israeli American businessman and financier and former chair of Marvel Entertainment. He and his wife have donated to Trump’s presidential campaigns and affiliated PACs.
Trump administration officials (3):
Benjamin Leon Jr. Background: The Cuban American founder of Miami-based Leon Medical Centers is Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Spain.
Kelly Loeffler and Jeffrey Sprecher Background: A former Republican senator from Georgia, Loeffler heads Trump’s Small Business Administration. Her husband is CEO of the energy market Intercontinental Exchange Inc. and chairs the New York Stock Exchange. The couple faced scrutiny in 2020 for dumping substantial portions of their portfolio and purchasing new stocks, including in firms making protective equipment, after Congress received briefings on the severity of the coming coronavirus pandemic.
Lutnick Family Background: Howard Lutnick is Trump’s commerce secretary. A crypto enthusiast, he once headed the brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald.
Communications/entertainment (3):
Comcast Background: The mass media and telecom conglomerate has often been criticized by Trump, including in April, when the president posted that Comcast was a “disgrace to the integrity of broadcasting.” The company owns NBC and is spinning off MSNBC. It could be interested in acquiring Warner Bros. Discover, and that would leave Comcast looking for government approval.
Hard Rock International Background: A Florida-based gaming and tourism concern owned by the Seminole Tribe, the company operates a number of casinos, including the former Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Trump has for decades criticized federal exemptions allowing tribes to operate casinos.
T-Mobile Background: The wireless carrier is indirectly linked to Trump Mobile, which the president’s family controls and offers gold phones and cell service in a licensing deal. Trump Mobile uses Liberty Mobile Wireless, a small, Florida-based network that T-Mobile says runs its operations on T-Mobile’s network. T-Mobile says that is unrelated to its decision to donate to Trump’s ballroom, which it says is meant to “restore and enrich the historic landmarks that define our nation’s capital.”
Big Tobacco (2):
Altria Group Background: The tobacco giant controls Philip Morris USA, maker of Marlboro. It has pressed for federal crackdowns on counterfeit and illegal vaping products. The company donated $50,000 to Trump’s inauguration.
Booz Allen Hamilton Background: A major defense and national security technology firm with extensive government contracts, it paid fines to settle lawsuits with the Justice Department under Biden. Booz Allen Hamilton agreed to pay more than $377 million in 2023 to settle allegations that it improperly billing costs to its government contracts. In January, it paid nearly $16 million to settle allegations that it submitted fraudulent claims in connection with government contracts.
Lockheed Martin Corporation Background: The massive defense contractor has huge government contracts. It said in a statement that it “is grateful for the opportunity to help bring the President’s vision to reality and make this addition to the People’s House.”
Individuals (7):
Stefan E. Brodie Background: A biotech entrepreneur and co-founder of the chemical manufacturing company Purolite, Brodie and his family donated to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and affiliated committees. Brodie and his brother, Donald, were convicted in 2002 of circumventing U.S. sanctions on Cuba.
Charles and Marissa Cascarilla Background: Charles Cascarilla is co‑founder of the blockchain firm Paxos. He and his wife are philanthropists who have advocated for financial technology sector deregulation.
J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul Background: Longtime Republican donors and Palm Beach residents, the couple controls U.S. sugar refining interests that includes the Domino brand.
Edward and Shari Glazer Background: Members of the family that owns the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and has a controlling stake in the Manchester United football club, the couple donated to Trump’s campaign. Edward is the founder and CEO of US Property Trust, which operates shopping centers, and the car dealership company US Auto Trust.
Harold Hamm Background: The billionaire oil tycoon and pioneer of hydraulic fracturing heads the oil producer Continental Resources. He’s praised the Trump administration for aggressively moving to purchase oil to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve stockpile.
Stephen A. Schwarzman Background: A Palm Beach resident and chair and CEO of the Blackstone Group, a global private equity firm he helped establish in 1985. Schwarzman has donated to Trump and his PACs previously and led his first-term President’s Strategic and Policy Forum.
Konstantin Sokolov Background: Born in Russia, he immigrated to the U.S. and now heads the Chicago-based private equity firm IJS Investments. Sokolov has donated to many educational and charitable causes in the past, and to Trump’s political campaigns.
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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
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This story has been updated to correct the first name of an individual who donated to the White House ballroom. He is Harold Hamm, not Howard Hamm.
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced a $50 billion investment in computing infrastructure on Wednesday that will include new data centers in Texas and New York.
Microsoft also on Wednesday announced a new data center under construction in Atlanta, Georgia, describing it as connected to another in Wisconsin to form a “massive supercomputer” running on hundreds of thousands of Nvidia chips to power AI technology.
The latest deals show that the tech industry is moving forward on huge spending to build energy-hungry AI infrastructure, despite lingering financial concerns about a bubble, environmental considerations and the political effects of fast-rising electricity bills in the communities where the massive buildings are constructed.
Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, said it is working with London-based Fluidstack to build the new computing facilities to power its AI systems. It didn’t disclose their exact locations or what source of electricity they will need.
Another company, cryptocurrency mining data center developer TeraWulf, has previously revealed it was working with Fluidstack on Google-backed data center projects in Texas and New York, on the shore of Lake Ontario. TeraWulf declined comment Wednesday.
A report last month from TD Cowen said that the leading cloud computing providers leased a “staggering” amount of U.S. data center capacity in the third fiscal quarter of this year, amounting to more than 7.4 gigawatts of energy, more than all of last year combined.
Oracle was securing the most capacity during that time, much of it supporting AI workloads for Anthropic’s chief rival OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT. Google was second and Fluidstack came in third, ahead of Meta, Amazon, CoreWeave and Microsoft.
Anthropic said its projects will create about 800 permanent jobs and 2,400 construction jobs. It said in a statement that the “scale of this investment is necessary to meet the growing demand for Claude from hundreds of thousands of businesses while keeping our research at the frontier.”
Microsoft has branded its two-story Atlanta data center as Fairwater 2 and said it will be connected across a “high-speed network” with the original Fairwater complex being built south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The company said the facility’s densely packed Nvidia chips will help power Microsoft’s own AI technology, along with OpenAI’s and other AI developers.
Microsoft was, until earlier this year, OpenAI’s exclusive cloud computing provider before the two companies amended their partnership. OpenAI has since announced more than $1 trillion in infrastructure obligations, much of it tied to its Stargate project with partners Oracle and SoftBank. Microsoft, in turn, spent nearly $35 billion in the July-September quarter on capital expenditures to support its AI and cloud demand, nearly half of that on computer chips.
The tech industry’s big spending on computing infrastructure for AI startups that aren’t yet profitable has fueled concerns about an AI investment bubble.
Investors have closely watched a series of circular deals over recent months between AI developers and the companies building the costly chips and data centers needed to power their AI products. Anthropic said it will continue to “prioritize cost-effective, capital-efficient approaches” to scaling up its business.
OpenAI had to backtrack last week after its chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, made comments at a tech conference suggesting the U.S. government could help in financing chips needed for data centers. The White House’s top AI official, David Sacks, responded on social media platform X that there “will be no federal bailout for AI” and if one of the leading companies fails, “others will take its place,” though he also added he didn’t think “anyone was actually asking for a bailout.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman later confirmed in a lengthy statement that “we do not have or want government guarantees” for the company’s data centers and also sought to address concerns about whether it will be able to pay for all the infrastructure it has signed up for.
“We are looking at commitments of about $1.4 trillion over the next 8 years,” Altman wrote. “Obviously this requires continued revenue growth, and each doubling is a lot of work! But we are feeling good about our prospects there.”
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) — For the past decade, Dr. Priscilla Chan and her husband Mark Zuckerberg have focused part of their philanthropy on a lofty goal — “to cure, prevent or manage all disease” — if not in their lifetime, then in their children’s. But during that time, they also funded underprivileged schools, immigration reform and efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion.
Now, the billionaire couple is shifting the bulk of their philanthropic resources to Biohub, the pair’s science organization, and focusing on using artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific discovery. The idea is to develop virtual, AI-based cell models to understand how they work in the human body, study inflammation and use AI to “harness the immune system” for disease detection, prevention and treatment.
“I feel like the science work that we’ve done, the Biohub model in particular, has been the most impactful thing that we have done. So we want to really double down on that. Biohub is going to be the main focus of our philanthropy going forward,” Zuckerberg said Wednesday evening at an event at the Biohub Imaging Institute in Redwood City, California. Three other Biohub institutes — in New York, San Francisco and Chicago, focus on addressing different scientific challenges.
Chan and Zuckerberg have pledged 99% of their lifetime wealth — from shares of Meta Platforms, where Zuckerberg is CEO — toward these efforts. Since 2016, when Biohub launched, they have donated $4 billion to basic science research, a figure that does not include operating expenses for running a large-scale computer cluster for life science research. The organization says it is now on track to double that amount over the next decade, with an operating budget of about $1 billion a year.
Last week, singer Billie Eilish told an audience that included Chan and Zuckerberg that rich people should do more to address the world’s problems.
“Love you all, but there’s a few people in here who have a lot more money than me,” she said, to a smattering of applause. “And if you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? And no hate, but give your money away, shorties.”
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the couple’s charitable organization, has been faced with criticism recently for curtailing its other philanthropic work. Earlier this year, it stopped funding grants related to diversity, equity and inclusion, immigration advocacy and other issues currently in the crosshairs of the Trump administration — though the focus has been shifting to science and away from social issues for years, the couple says, long before the 2024 election.
“So we basically looked at the ecosystem of science funding and decided that the place that we can make the biggest impact was on tool development,” Zuckerberg said. “And specifically working on long-term projects, 10 to 15 years, where the output of them was taking on a biological challenge that would produce a tool that scientists everywhere could use to accelerate the pace of science.”
The organization earlier this year scrubbed its website’s mentions of DEI, including a statement saying “People of color and marginalized communities have experienced a long history of exploitation in the name of scientific research, and indeed science has itself been deployed as a tool of oppression.”
“Going forward, Biohub will be our primary philanthropic effort and where we’ll dedicate the vast majority of our resources,” Zuckerberg and Chan said in a blog post Thursday. “We will continue our other philanthropic efforts as well, but the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will serve as infrastructure and support for our initiatives.”
Zuckerberg and Chan’s increased commitment to science research comes as the Trump administration has cut billions in scientific research and public health funding.
Chan, who had worked as a pediatrician and treated children with rare diseases, says what she wanted “more than anything was a way to see what was happening inside their cells — how genetic mutations were expressed in different cell types and what, exactly, was breaking down.”
“Until now, that kind of understanding has been out of reach. AI is changing that. For the first time, we have the potential to model and predict the biology of disease in ways that can reveal what’s gone wrong and how we can develop new treatments to address it,” she said.
On Thursday, Chan and Zuckerberg also announced that Biohub has hired the team at EvolutionaryScale, an AI research lab that has created large-scale AI systems for the life sciences. Alex Rives, EvolutionaryScale’s co-founder, will serve as Biohub’s head of science, leading research efforts on experimental biology, data and artificial intelligence. The financial terms were not disclosed.
Biohub’s ambition for the next years and decades is to create virtual cell systems that would not have been possible without recent advances in AI. Similar to how large language models learn from vast databases of digital books, online writings and other media, its researchers and scientists are working toward building virtual systems that serve as digital representations of human physiology on all levels, such as molecular, cellular or genome. As it is open source — free and publicly available — scientists can then conduct virtual experiments on a scale not possible in physical laboratories.
Noting that Biohub launched when the couple had their first child, Chan listed off some of the organization’s accomplishments, ranging from building the largest single-cell data set, contributing to one of the largest human cell maps, building sensors to measure inflammation in real-time in living cells and researching rare diseases.
That work continues, with a focus on using AI to advance biomedical research.
“And to anchor it back onto the impact on patients, you know, why do this?” Chan said. “It’s like, why is a virtual cell important? We have cured diseases for mice and for flies and for zebrafish, many, many times. And that’s great. But we want to make sure that we are actually using biology to push the forefront of medicine for people — and that is so promising.”
Denmark’s government on Friday announced an agreement to ban access to social media for anyone under 15, ratcheting up pressure on Big Tech platforms as concerns grow that kids are getting too swept up in a digitized world of harmful content and commercial interests.
The move would give some parents — after a specific assessment — the right to let their children access social media from age 13. It wasn’t immediately clear how such a ban would be enforced: Many tech platforms already restrict pre-teens from signing up. Officials and experts say such restrictions don’t always work.
Such a measure would be among the most sweeping steps yet by a European Union government to limit use of social media among teens and younger children, which has drawn concerns in many parts of an increasingly online world.
Speaking to The Associated Press, Caroline Stage, Denmark’s minister for digital affairs, said 94% of Danish children under age 13 have profiles on at least one social media platform, and more than half of those under 10 do.
“The amount of time they spend online — the amount of violence, self-harm that they are exposed to online — is simply too great a risk for our children,” she said, while praising tech giants as “the greatest companies that we have. They have an absurd amount of money available, but they’re simply not willing to invest in the safety of our children, invest in the safety of all of us.”
No rush to legislation, no loopholes for tech giants
Stage said a ban won’t take effect immediately. Allied lawmakers on the issue from across the political spectrum who make up a majority in parliament will likely take months to pass relevant legislation.
“I can assure you that Denmark will hurry, but we won’t do it too quickly because we need to make sure that the regulation is right and that there is no loopholes for the tech giants to go through,” Stage said. Her ministry said pressure from tech giants’ business models was “too massive.”
That made platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram subject to fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent children younger than 16 from holding accounts.
Officials in Denmark didn’t say how such a ban would be enforced in a world where millions of children have easy access to screens. But Stage noted that Denmark has a national electronic ID system — nearly all Danish citizens over age 13 have such an ID — and plans to set up an age-verification app. Several other EU countries are testing such apps.
“We cannot force the tech giants to use our app, but what we can do is force the tech giants to make proper age verification, and if they don’t, we will be able to enforce through the EU commission and make sure that they will be fined up to 6% of their global income.”
Aiming to shield kids from harmful content online
Many governments have been grappling with ways of limiting harmful fallout from online technologies, without overly squelching their promise. Stage said Denmark’s legislative push was “not about excluding children from everything digital” — but keeping them away from harmful content.
China — which manufacturers many of the world’s digital devices — has set limits on online game time and smart-phone time for kids.
“Children and young people have their sleep disrupted, lose their peace and concentration, and experience increasing pressure from digital relationships where adults are not always present,” the Danish ministry said. “This is a development that no parent, teacher or educator can stop alone.”
The EU’s Digital Services Act, which took effect two years ago, forbids children younger than 13 to hold accounts on social media like TikTok and Instagram, video sharing platforms like YouTube and Twitch, and sites like Reddit and Discord, as well as AI companions.
Many social media platforms have for years banned anyone 13 or under from signing up for their services. TikTok users can verify their ages by submitting a selfie that will be analyzed to estimate their age. Meta Platforms, parent of Instagram and Facebook, says it uses a similar system for video selfies and AI to help figure out a user’s age.
TikTok said in an email that it recognizes the importance of Denmark’s initiative.
“At TikTok, we have steadfastly created a robust trust and safety track record, with more than 50 preset safety features for teen accounts, as well as age appropriate experiences and tools for guardians such as Family Pairing,” a tool allowing parents, guardians, and teens to customize safety settings.
We look forward to working constructively on solutions that apply consistently across the industry,” it added.
Meta didn’t respond immediately to requests for comment from the AP.
“We’ve given the tech giants so many chances to stand up and to do something about what is happening on their platforms. They haven’t done it,” said Stage, the Danish minister. “So now we will take over the steering wheel and make sure that our children’s futures are safe.”
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AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan contributed to this report.
Slime, that gooey, sticky and often-homemade plaything, was enshrined into the National Toy Hall of Fame on Thursday along with perennial bestselling games Battleship and Trivial Pursuit.
Each year, the Hall of Fame recognizes toys that have inspired creative play across generations, culling its finalists from among thousands of nominees sent in online. Voting by the public and a panel of experts decides which playthings will be inducted.
Milton Bradley’s Battleship, a strategy game that challenges players to strike an opponent’s warships, and Trivial Pursuit, which tests players’ knowledge in categories like geography and sports, have each sold more than 100 million copies over several decades, according to the Hall of Fame.
Battleship started as a pencil-and-paper game in the 1930s, but it was Milton Bradley’s 1967 plastic edition with fold-up stations and model ships that became a hit with the public. Its popularity crested when Universal Pictures and Hasbro, which now owns Milton Bradley, released the 2012 movie, “Battleship,” loosely based on the game. Battleship was also among the first board games to be computerized in 1979, according to the Hall of Fame, and now there are numerous, electronic versions.
Trivial Pursuit lets players compete alone or in teams as they maneuver around a board answering trivia questions in exchange for wedges in a game piece. Canadian journalists Chris Haney and Scott Abbott came up with the game in 1979 and eventually sold the rights to Hasbro. Frequently updated, specialty versions have emerged for young players, baby boomers and other segments and an online daily quiz keeps players engaged, chief curator Chris Bensch said.
Slime’s appeal is more about squish than skill.
It was introduced commercially in 1976 and has been manufactured under various brand names, but it is even more accessible as a do-it-yourself project. The internet offers a variety of recipes using ingredients like baking soda, glue and contact lens solution.
“Though slime continues to carry icky connotations to slugs and swamps — all part of the fun for some — the toy offers meaningful play,” curator Michelle Parnett-Dwyer said, adding that it’s also used for stress relief and building motor skills.
The honorees will be on permanent display at the Hall of Fame inside The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.
This year’s inductees were voted in over other nominees including the games Catan and Connect Four, the Spirograph drawing device, the “Star Wars” lightsaber, Furby and Tickle Me Elmo. They also beat out classics including scooters, cornhole and snow.
Google Maps is heading in a new direction with artificial intelligence sitting in the passenger’s seat.
Fueled by Google’s Gemini AI technology, the world’s most popular navigation app will become a more conversational companion as part of a redesign announced Wednesday.
The hands-free experience is meant to turn Google Maps into something more like an insightful passenger able to direct a driver to a destination while also providing nearby recommendations on places to eat, shop or sightsee, when asked for the advice.
“No fumbling required — now you can just ask,” Google promised in a blog post about the app makeover.
The AI features are also supposed to enable Google Maps to be more precise by calling out landmarks to denote the place to make a turn instead of relying on distance notifications.
AI chatbots, like Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, have sometimes lapsed into periods of making things up — known as “hallucinations” in tech speak — but Google is promising that built-in safeguards will prevent Maps from accidentally sending drivers down the wrong road.
All the information that Gemini is drawing upon will be culled from the roughly 250 million places stored in Google Maps’ database of reviews accumulated during the past 20 years.
Google Maps’ new AI capabilities will be rolling out to both Apple’s iPhone and Android mobile devices.
That will give Google’s Gemini a massive audience to impress — or disappoint — with its AI prowess, given the navigation app is used by more than 2 billion people around the world. Besides making it even more indispensable, Google is hoping the AI features will turn into a showcase that help gives Gemini a competitive edge against ChatGPT.
Prodded by OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT in late 2022, Google has been steadily rolling out more of its own technology designed to ensure its products continue to evolve with the upheaval being unleashed by AI. The changes have included an overhaul of Google’s ubiquitous search engine that has de-emphasized a listing of relevant web links in its results and increasingly highlighted AI overviews and conversational responses provided through an AI mode.
The Motion Picture Association is asking Meta to stop referring to content shown to teen accounts on Instagram as “guided by PG-13 ratings,” saying it is misleading and could erode trust in its movie ratings system.
A lawyer on behalf of the MPA sent Meta Platforms a cease-and-desist letter asking the tech giant to “immediately and permanently disassociate its Teen Accounts and AI tools from the MPA’s rating system.”
Instagram had announced last month that its teen accounts will be will be restricted to seeing PG-13 content by default. The Motion Picture Association, which runs the film rating system that was established nearly 60 years ago, said at the time that it was not contacted by Meta prior to its announcement.
The MPA says Meta’s claims claims that its Teen Accounts will be “guided by” PG-13 ratings and that its Teen Account content settings are “generally aligned with movie ratings for ages 13+” are “false and highly misleading.” The association’s movie ratings, which range from G to NC-17, are done by parents who watch entire movies and evaluate them to come up with a rating.
“Meta’s attempts to restrict teen content literally cannot be ‘guided by’ or ‘aligned with’ the MPA’s PG-13 movie rating because Meta does not follow this curated process,” the association’s letter says. “Instead, Meta’s content restrictions appear to rely heavily on artificial intelligence or other automated technology measures.”
In a statement, Meta said it updated its teen content policies to be “closer to PG-13 movie standards— which parents already know” so parents can better understand what their teens see on Instagram.
“We know social media isn’t the same as movies, but we made this change to support parents, and we hope to work with the MPA to continue bringing families this clarity,” the company said. Meta added that its intent was never to suggest that it partnered with the MPA or that the material on Instagram had been rated by the movie association.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, one of Tesla’s biggest investors, said Tuesday that it will vote against a proposed compensation package that could pay CEO Elon Musk as much as $1 trillion over a decade.
There will be more than a dozen company proposals up for a vote Thursday during Tesla’s annual meeting, but none have generated more division than Musk’s potentially massive pay package.
“While we appreciate the significant value created under Mr. Musk’s visionary role, we are concerned about the total size of the award, dilution, and lack of mitigation of key person risk consistent with our views on executive compensation,” said Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages the country’s Government Pension Fund Global. “We will continue to seek constructive dialogue with Tesla on this and other topics.”
The fund has a 1.16% stake, the sixth largest holding among institutional investors.
AP AUDIO: Big Tesla investor will vote against Musk’s massive pay package
A proposed compensation package is getting a lot of attention ahead of Tesla’s annual meeting. AP correspondent Mike Hempen reports.
Baron Capital Management, which holds about 0.4% of Tesla’s outstanding shares said Monday that it will vote in favor of the compensation package.
“Elon is the ultimate “key man” of key man risk. Without his relentless drive and uncompromising standards, there would be no Tesla,” wrote founder Ron Baron. “He has built one of the most important companies in the world. He’s redefining transportation, energy and humanoid robotics and creating lasting value for shareholders while doing it. His interests are completely aligned with investors.”
Musk is the company’s largest investor, holding 15.79% of all outstanding shares.
Tesla management has proposed a compensation arrangement that would hand Musk shares worth as much as 12% of the company in a dozen separate packages if the company meets ambitious performance targets, including massive increases in car production, share price and operating profit.
LONDON (AP) — Artificial intelligence company Stability AI mostly prevailed against Getty Images Tuesday in a British court battle over intellectual property.
Seattle-based Getty had accused Stability AI of infringing its copyright and trademark by scraping 12 million images from its website, without permission, to train its popular image generator, Stable Diffusion.
The closely followed case at Britain’s High Court was among the first in a wave of lawsuits involving generative AI as movie studios, authors and artists challenged tech companies’ use of their works to train AI chatbots.
Tech companies have long argued that “fair use” or “fair dealing” legal doctrines in the United States and United Kingdom allow them to train their AI systems on large troves of writings or images. Tuesday’s ruling provides some clarity but still leaves big unanswered questions over copyright and AI, experts said.
According to the judge’s written ruling, Getty narrowly won its argument that Stability had infringed its trademark, but lost the rest of its case.
Both sides claimed victory.
“This is a significant win for intellectual property owners,” Getty Images said in a statement.
Shares of Getty dipped 3% before the opening bell in the U.S.
Stability, based in London, said it was pleased with the ruling.
“This final ruling ultimately resolves the copyright concerns that were the core issue,” Stability’s General Counsel Christian Dowell said.
Getty had accused Stability of both primary and secondary copyright infringement.
Legal experts said the first one involves the act of reproducing something without permission — similar to a dodgy factory churning out counterfeit Chanel handbags or pirated CDs — while the second involves importing those copies from another country.
In this case, Getty said Stability’s use of its image library to train and develop Stable Diffusion’s AI model amounted to breach of primary copyright. Stability responded that the case doesn’t belong in the United Kingdom because the AI model’s training technically happened elsewhere, on computers run by U.S. tech giant Amazon.
During the three-week trial in June, Getty dropped its primary copyright allegations, in a sign that it didn’t think they would succeed. But it still pursued the secondary infringement claims. Even if Stability’s AI training happened outside the U.K., Getty said offering the Stable Diffusion service to British users amounted to importing unlawful copies of its images into the country.
Justice Joanna Smith rejected Getty’s claims, ruling that Stable Diffusion’s AI didn’t infringe copyright because it doesn’t “store or reproduce any Copyright Works (and has never done so).”
Getty also sued for trademark infringement because its watermark appeared on some of the images generated by Stability’s chatbot.
The judge sided with Getty but added that the case only partially succeeded, and that her findings are “both historic and extremely limited in scope.”
“While I have found instances of trademark infringement, I have been unable to determine that these were widespread,” she said.
Experts said Getty’s move to drop part of its copyright case means AI training is still in legal limbo.
“The decision leaves the U.K. without a meaningful verdict on the lawfulness of an AI model’s process of learning from copyright materials,” said Iain Connor, an intellectual property partner at law firm Michelmores.
Smith said there was “very real societal importance” in deciding how to strike a balance between the creative and tech industries. But she added that the court can only rule on the “diminished” case that remained and couldn’t consider “issues that have been abandoned.”
A Getty spokeswoman declined to say whether there would be an appeal.
Getty is also pursuing a copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States against Stability. It originally sued in 2023 but refiled the case in a San Francisco federal court in August.
The Getty lawsuits are among a slew of cases that highlight how the generative AI boom is fueling a clash between tech companies and creative industries.
AI companies are now fighting more than 50 copyright lawsuits — so many that a tech industry lobby group has called on President Donald Trump for help stop the court fights, saying they threaten AI innovation.
Among the cases, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit by authors while a federal judge dismissed a similar lawsuit from 13 authors against Meta Platforms. Warner Bros. has sued Midjourney for copyright infringement, as have Disney and Universal in seperate lawsuits, alleging that its image generator creates copyrighted characters.
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AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien contributed to this report.
Kimberly-Clark is buying Tylenol maker Kenvue in a cash and stock deal worth about $48.7 billion, creating a massive consumer health goods company.
Shareholders of Kimberly-Clark will own about 54% of the combined company. Kenvue shareholders will own about 46% in what is one of the largest corporate takeovers this year. The deal must still be approved by the shareholders of both companies.
The combined company will have a huge stable of household brands under one roof, putting Kenvue’s Listerine mouthwash and Band-Aid side-by-side with Kimberly-Clark’s Cottonelle toilet paper, Huggies and Kleenex tissues. It will also generate about $32 billion in annual revenue.
Kenvue has spent a relatively brief period as an independent company, having been spun off by Johnson & Johnson two years ago. J&J first announced in late 2021 that it was splitting its slow-growth consumer health division from the pharmaceutical and medical device divisions.
Kenvue has since been targeted by activist investors unhappy about the trajectory of the company and Wall Street appeared to anticipate some heavy lifting ahead for Kimberly-Clark.
Kenvue’s stock jumped 12% Monday afternoon, while shares of Kimberly-Clark, based outside of Dallas, slumped by nearly 15%.
Kenvue shares have shed nearly 50% of their value since approaching $28 in the spring of 2023. Morningstar analyst Keonhee Kim said Kenvue’s volatile journey as a public company may have been driven in part by poor execution and a lack of experience operating as a stand-alone business.
He said the leadership of a more-established consumer products company like Kimberly-Clark could help unlock some of Kenvue’s value.
He also noted that Kenvue brands include Neutrogena, Benadryl and other names that have been in store consumer health aisles for decades. Kim said he thinks Kimberly-Clark may have seen upside in adding those products.
“I think that may have made the deal a lot more attractive … especially after the past couple of months of Kenvue’s stock price decline,” he said.
Trump then urged pregnant women against using the medicine. That went beyond Food and Drug Administration advice that doctors “should consider minimizing” the painkiller acetaminophen’s use in pregnancy — amid inconclusive evidence about whether too much could be linked to autism.
Kennedy reiterated the FDA guidance during a press conference last week. He said that there isn’t sufficient evidence to link the drug to autism.
“We have asked physicians to minimize the use to when it’s absolutely necessary,” he said.
Kenvue has continued to push back on the Trump administration’s public statements about Tylenol and acetaminophen, the active ingredient it contains.
“We strongly disagree with allegations that it does and are deeply concerned about the health risks and confusion this poses for expecting mothers and parents,” Kenvue said in a statement on its website.
The merger could face other hurdles. Citi Investment Research analyst Filippo Falorni said he is concerned about the deal’s size given the recent history in the sector, particularly given the challenges faced by Kenvue.
In July, Kenvue announced that CEO Thibaut Mongon was leaving in the midst of a strategic review, with the company under mounting pressure from activist investors unhappy about growth. Critics say Kenvue has relied too much on its legacy brands and failed to innovate.
Industry analysts also point out the poor track record for mergers involving consumer packaged goods companies. In September, Kraft Heinz said it would break up its decade-old merger. Its net revenue has fallen every year since 2020.
Kimberly-Clark and Kenvue, like Kraft Heinz, are facing increasing competition from cheaper store brands. In 2024, 51% of toilet paper and other household paper products sold in the U.S were store brands, according to Circana, a market research company, while store brands held a 24% share of sales of health products, including medications and vitamins.
On Monday, a bottle of 100 extra-strength Tylenol caplets cost $10.97 on Walmart’s website. A bottle of 100 extra-strength acetaminophen caplets from Walmart’s Equate brand cost $1.98.
Inflation drove some of that buyer behavior, Circana said. Shoppers are also shifting their purchases to stores with more private-label brands, like Aldi and Costco. And stores are improving their offerings and adding more of them; last year, Walmart and Target both launched new store brands to complement their existing ones.
Still, both Kimberly-Clark and Kenvue make name-brand products in segments where consumers are less likely to shift to store brands, including hair care, skin care, feminine products and mouth care, according to Circana. Kenvue owns brands like Aveeno and Neutrogena, for example, while Kimberly-Clark makes Kotex and Depend.
Kimberly-Clark Chairman and CEO Mike Hsu will be chairman and CEO of the combined company. Three members of the Kenvue’s board will join Kimberly-Clark’s board at closing. The combined company will keep Kimberly-Clark’s headquarters in Irving, Texas, but there will be significant operations around Kenvue facilities and locations as well.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of next year. It still needs approval from shareholders of both both companies.
Kenvue shareholders will receive $3.50 per share in cash and 0.14625 Kimberly-Clark shares for each Kenvue share held at closing. That amounts to $21.01 per share, based on the closing price of Kimberly-Clark shares on Friday.
Kimberly-Clark and Kenvue said that they identified about $1.9 billion in cost savings that are expected in the first three years after the transaction’s closing.
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AP Health Writer Tom Murphy contributed to this report.
Microsoft has entered into a $9.7 billion cloud services contract with artificial intelligence cloud service provider IREN that will give it access to some of Nvidia’s chips.
The five-year deal, which includes a 20% prepayment, will help Microsoft as it looks to keep up with AI demand. Last week the software maker reported its quarterly sales grew 18% to $77.7 billion, beating Wall Street expectations while also surprising some investors with the huge amounts of money it is spending to expand its cloud computing infrastructure and address the growing need for AI tools.
Microsoft spent nearly $35 billion in the July-September quarter on capital expenditures to support AI and cloud demand, nearly half of that on computer chips and much of the rest related to data center real estate.
“IREN’s expertise in building and operating a fully integrated AI cloud — from data centers to GPU stack — combined with their secured power capacity makes them a strategic partner,” Jonathan Tinter, president of business development and ventures at Microsoft, said in a statement. “This collaboration unlocks new growth opportunities for both companies and the customers we serve.”
Microsoft also announced new deal with OpenAI last week that pushed the Redmond, Washington, company to $4 trillion in valuation for the second time this year. The agreement gives the software giant a roughly 27% stake in OpenAI’s new for-profit corporation but changes some of the details of their close partnership. Microsoft’s $135 billion stake will be just ahead of the OpenAI nonprofit’s $130 billion stake in the for-profit company.
IREN also said Monday that it signed a deal with Dell Technologies to buy the chips and ancillary equipment for about $5.8 billion. The Australian company anticipates the chips being deployed in phases through next year at its Childress, Texas campus.
Shares of IREN jumped 22% before the opening bell in the U.S. Shares of Microsoft rose slightly,.
SEATTLE (AP) — OpenAI and Amazon have signed a $38 billion deal that enables the ChatGPT maker to run its artificial intelligence systems on Amazon’s data centers in the U.S.
OpenAI will be able to power its AI tools using “hundreds of thousands” of Nvidia’s specialized AI chips through Amazon Web Services as part of the deal announced Monday.
Amazon shares increased 4% after the announcement.
The agreement comes less than a week after OpenAI altered its partnership with its longtime backer Microsoft, which until early this year was the startup’s exclusive cloud computing provider.
California and Delaware regulators also last week allowed San Francisco-based OpenAI, which was founded as a nonprofit, to move forward on its plan to form a new business structure to more easily raise capital and make a profit.
“The rapid advancement of AI technology has created unprecedented demand for computing power,” Amazon said in a statement Monday. It said OpenAI “will immediately start utilizing AWS compute as part of this partnership, with all capacity targeted to be deployed before the end of 2026, and the ability to expand further into 2027 and beyond.”
AI requires huge amounts of energy and computing power and OpenAI has long signaled that it needs more capacity, both to develop new AI systems and keep existing products like ChatGPT answering the questions of its hundreds of millions of users. It’s recently made more than $1 trillion worth of financial obligations in spending for AI infrastructure, including data center projects with Oracle and SoftBank and semiconductor supply deals with chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom.
Some of the deals have raised investor concerns about their “circular” nature, since OpenAI doesn’t make a profit and can’t yet afford to pay for the infrastructure that its cloud backers are providing on the expectations of future returns on their investments. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week dismissed doubters he says have aired “breathless concern” about the deals.
“Revenue is growing steeply. We are taking a forward bet that it’s going to continue to grow,” Altman said on a podcast where he appeared with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Amazon is already the primary cloud provider to AI startup Anthropic, an OpenAI rival that makes the Claude chatbot.
