Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic have spent the past two years building a regulatory framework around artificial intelligence, issuing executive orders, passing binding legislation, and standing up safety consortiums. The largest AI developers, including OpenAI and Anthropic, have signed voluntary agreements to cooperate with federal testing programs. Yet the speed at which new…
Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr warned on November 11, 2025, that firms are already scaling back hiring because of artificial intelligence, a signal that the long-predicted collision between AI and the labor market is no longer theoretical. That same week, fresh research and government data confirmed that the effects are spreading well beyond Silicon Valley,…
A federal lawsuit targets Stellantis with allegations that the automaker concealed a safety defect in the front seats of more than two million Dodge and Chrysler vehicles, potentially leaving drivers exposed to collapsing seats during crashes. The complaint, filed in Michigan, claims Stellantis had internal knowledge of the problem for years but chose not to…
FATE S.A., Argentina’s sole domestically owned tire manufacturer, announced a shutdown and dismissed all 920 of its workers, ending decades of national production in a single stroke. The Buenos Aires provincial government responded by ordering mandatory conciliation to freeze the mass layoffs, but the company’s stated reason, changes in market conditions, points to structural pressures…
The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet is seeking to raise about $100 million by 2028 to support the digitization of India’s electricity grid, according to a Reuters report citing the alliance’s CEO. The effort is framed as a way to help India integrate more renewable power as it pursues its net-zero goal for…
Canada is set to cut its effective tariff on Chinese electric vehicles from 100% to 6.1%, and polling shows many Canadians are ready to buy. The policy shift, described in reporting as part of a broader deal with Beijing, opens the door to more affordable Chinese-made EVs entering the Canadian market each year. The shift…
Russia’s Lukoil, a 75% stakeholder in Iraq’s West Qurna 2—one of the world’s biggest oil fields—is suddenly losing its grip on the project’s operations after U.S. sanctions forced the company into a rushed divestment of its international holdings. Iraq announced plans to nationalize the field’s operations as Lukoil faces a January 17 deadline to sell…
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, announced plans on February 18, 2026, to temporarily suspend tax incentives for data centers, directly linking the facilities’ explosive electricity demand to rising power bills across the state. The proposal targets a generous incentive package that has offered sales tax exemptions lasting up to 20 years, and it arrives…
Tesla sidestepped a potential suspension of its California dealer license by quietly stripping “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving Capability” from its consumer-facing marketing materials. The California Department of Motor Vehicles confirmed on February 17, 2026, that the automaker took corrective action to satisfy a stayed penalty stemming from an administrative law judge’s finding that the company…
Saudi Arabia’s state-backed artificial intelligence company Humain announced on February 18, 2026, that it invested $3 billion into Elon Musk’s xAI as part of the startup’s Series E funding round. The deal, which closed just before SpaceX formally acquired xAI, converted Humain’s stake into SpaceX equity and made the Saudi entity a significant minority shareholder….
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