Bloomberg Businessweek

Apple named hardware chief John Ternus as the iPhone maker’s next leader, with Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook shifting to the role of executive chairman.

Ternus, 50, will become CEO on Sept. 1, the company said in a statement Monday. The Apple veteran was head of hardware engineering since 2021 and has spent 25 years focused on product development at the iPhone maker. Bloomberg News previously reported that Ternus was Cook’s heir apparent.

Ternus’s hardware engineering division will be taken over by longtime deputy Tom Marieb, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. He will report to newly named Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji. In that role, Srouji is gaining oversight of a newly combined hardware engineering and hardware technologies group.

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US President Donald Trump said he’s not likely to extend the two-week ceasefire with Iran, increasing the urgency for negotiators to conclude a deal to end the war.

Trump said in a Monday phone interview that the truce, which he announced April 7, expires on “Wednesday evening Washington time” — possibly buying more time for negotiations. But the president also said it’s “highly unlikely that I’d extend it” if no deal is reached before then.

“I’m not going to be rushed into making a bad deal. We’ve got all the time in the world,” the president said.In the interview, Trump reiterated that the Strait of Hormuz would stay blockaded for now, saying “the Iranians desperately want it opened. I’m not opening it until a deal is signed.” Iran previously said it would open the critical waterway for energy supplies to international shipping, but reversed that decision in light of Trump’s refusal to follow suit.

Details about the next negotiating session, expected to take place in Pakistan, started to came into focus on Monday. Iran is also sending a team, according to people familiar with the plans who declined to be identified, although it is not clear who would lead the delegation. Earlier, Tehran said it was hesitant to participate in further peace talks with the US.
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The consumer price index has risen quickly since early 2020, with some categories seeing steeper price increases, making it hard for consumers to avoid feeling swindled. Quince, an online retailer, has found success by selling low-cost "luxury" goods, cutting out middlemen, and using data analysis and close relationships with manufacturers to keep prices low.

Amanda Mull, Bloomberg Businessweek Senior Reporter writes how Quince's approach to logistics, shipping merchandise directly from manufacturers to customers, has enabled the company to undercut competitors' prices and achieve efficiency unheard of among large apparel retailers.

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Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show "Bloomberg Businessweek Daily."
Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec

Hear the show live at 2PM ET on WBBR 1130 AM New York, Bloomberg 92.9 FM Boston, WDCH 99.1 FM in Washington D.C. Metro, Sirius/XM channel 121, on the Bloomberg Business App, Radio.com, the iHeartRadio app and at Bloomberg.com/audio.

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President Donald Trump said Iran agreed to suspend its nuclear program indefinitely, and will not receive any frozen funds from the US.Trump said in a phone interview on Friday that a deal to end the war, which the US and Israel began with Iran in late February, is mostly complete. Talks over a lasting agreement will “probably” be held this weekend, the president said.

“Most of the main points are finalized. It’ll go pretty quickly,” Trump said.Iran has yet to comment on any deal beyond the Strait of Hormuz opening, nor on claims made by Trump on Thursday that Tehran had offered concessions — including over the key issue of its nuclear program.
Oil, fuel and natural gas prices plunged on hopes that the latest developments would mean more energy supplies can finally transit safely through the strait.

Brent crude fell more than 10% to trade below $89 a barrel by 12:41 p.m. in New York and wiped out most of its gains since the onset of the war. Diesel prices in Europe and the US led the move lower in the energy complex.

Trump said he hasn’t decided who would lead a US delegation for talks with Iranian officials to sign an agreement. Asked if he would travel to Pakistan, which hosted the last round of negotiations, the president said, “I may.”

JD Vance led discussions with Iranian officials last weekend, and Trump said the vice president, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and envoy Steve Witkoff were candidates to attend additional talks.

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Carol and Tim speak with Dr. Bea Bakshi, co-founder and CEO of C the Signs, an early cancer detection platform that uses AI as part of our weekly women's health segment. 

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Charles Schwab is likely to launch prediction markets linked to financial events as competitors including Robinhood Markets Inc. expand their presence in the space.Schwab is “taking a hard look” at prediction markets, Chief Executive Officer Rick Wurster said on a conference call Thursday, but would stay away from allowing customers to place wagers on sports or pop culture given the firm’s focus on building clients’ long-term wealth.

“Prediction markets that are not aligned to that are not something we want to pursue,” Wurster said on the call with analysts to discuss first-quarter results.

Retail investors can already access prediction markets via a number of platforms, including Robinhood, Kalshi, Polymarket and Interactive Brokers Group. The majority of event-based wagering centers around sports, which Wurster said Schwab won’t offer.

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There are many different narratives around travel uncertainty and issues, stretching from TSA staffing to storms to the war in Iran and its impact on the airline industry. Many of them are false or at least as it relates to business travel. Navan's agentic-AI tools, which ease the customer experience and can deliver up to 15% median savings on travel budgets, should continue to disrupt legacy providers in the corporate-booking space -- as evidenced by the company turning free-cash-flow positive on the back of 4Q's 42% gross bookings volume growth. Management noted no current impact on the business from the geopolitical environment or TSA disruptions.

Ariel Cohen is CEO at Navan. He discusses the data into the health of the corporate traveler.

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US economic activity continued to increase at a slight-to-modest pace across most regions as the war with Iran generated a new wave of uncertainty and higher energy costs, the Federal Reserve said.

Price growth remained moderate overall, but energy and fuel costs rose sharply in all 12 Fed districts, the central bank reported in its Beige Book survey of regional business contacts released Wednesday.

“The conflict in the Middle East was cited as a major source of uncertainty that complicated decision-making around hiring, pricing and capital investment, with many firms adopting a wait-and-see posture,” the Fed said.
The report featured information compiled by the New York Fed and collected through April 6, capturing the early effects of the war on the US economy.The report also noted that price pressures were bleeding beyond energy.

“Energy and fuel costs rose sharply in all districts, attributed to the Middle East conflict, leading to higher freight and shipping costs and higher prices for plastics, fertilizers and other petroleum-based products,” the Fed said. “Input cost pressures beyond energy-related increases were also widespread.”

The oil shock spurred by the conflict has sent gasoline prices in the US to their highest level since 2022, leading US inflation to jump in March. Several Fed policymakers have signaled a preference to keep borrowing costs steady for quite some time while they evaluate the economic data. Officials are expected to leave their benchmark rate unchanged when they meet on April 28-29, according to pricing in futures contracts.

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As credit card companies with lofty fees compete for affluent consumers, the hottest new perks are wearable devices for tracking health, fitness and sleep. After lifting annual dues for their top-tier cards, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and American Express Co. rolled out typical benefits like hotel, dining and travel credits. But there were also more unexpected bonuses: American Express added a $200 credit toward an Oura Health Oy smart ring to the Platinum Card, while Chase included a $359 rebate for Whoop Inc.’s fitness bands for Sapphire Reserve holders. The promotions are generating results, pushing users to sign up for the latest credit cards and join the wearables craze for the first time.

Cam Baker, Bloomberg News Breaking News Editor discusses with Bloomberg's Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec.

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Bank results so far show that private credit woes remain contained, with executives offering words of calm for nervous investors.

First, there are no big red flags in the aggregate credit loss provisions from the four big banks that have reported so far, including Wells Fargo. The measure, where stress typically starts to show, is tracking higher for some lenders -- for instance, Goldman attributed the increase to “growth and impairments related to wholesale loans,” yet the overall number remains very modest compared to peers.

Citi’s worse-than-expected provisions were tied to US consumer card losses and a firmwide reserves build amid the uncertain macro environment, but its measure is only the highest since 2Q 2025. That has also been offset by JPMorgan’s lower-than-estimated provisions.
Taken altogether, the combined bad debt forecast tally is so far smaller than feared for the quarter and more modest than it was during the same period last year.

Banks went further to disclose at least $100 billion of specific exposure to private-credit firms, with Citi saying that it’s had zero losses over the life of the portfolio. Its executives noted on the call that the bank has strong protections in place, including a prudent approach to reserves, which it continues to constantly stress test.

For his part, JPMorgan CEO Dimon said he’s “not particularly worried” about private credit after the bank disclosed a $50 billion exposure. Goldman CEO David Solomon also defended the industry on Monday.

The remarks and moderate credit provisions so far should give investors some comfort that strains from private credit remain limited so far -- something that other parts of the credit market have been signaling as well.

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CraftCo CEO Ali Anderson joins Tim Stenovec and Emily Graffeo to discuss her brands diverse portfolio of innovative craft spirits including celebrating a big anniversary for its Magnus Cigar Blend whiskey.

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President Donald Trump said Iran reached out to his administration over peace negotiations, as the US began a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in the war’s seventh week.Even as Trump sought to jawbone negotiations back on track, there were few signs that was taking place after weekend negotiations failed in Islamabad. Iran blamed the collapse of talks on the US and Tehran has not confirmed further discussions on Monday.

“We’ve been called this morning by the right people, the appropriate people, and they want to work a deal,” Trump said at the White House, without elaborating on who participated in the conversation.
Trump spoke hours after the US moved to cut off vessels from transiting the vital waterway to and from Iranian ports and coastal areas, which could further inflame tensions amid the global energy crisis.

The US president once again claimed that negotiations had failed due to Iran’s insistence on maintaining a nuclear program. Trump said he was “sure” Iran will eventually agree to abandon nuclear ambitions, and reiterated there would be no deal without that concession.
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Sports-focused private equity firm 154 Partners, backed by Blackstone Inc. veteran David Blitzer, wrapped up fundraising for its debut vehicle with $400 million.

The firm hit its hard fundraising cap, according to a statement Wednesday from 154 Partners, which makes investments on the lower end of the middle market.
Blitzer, who previously led Blackstone’s Tactical Opportunities unit, is a member of 154 Partners’ investment committee along with co-founders Isaac Harrouche and Mike Berlin, who both worked with him at Tac Opps. Harrouche and Berlin launched 154 Partners last year to back smaller, family- or operator-owned companies in sports, live events, residential services and business services.

154 Partners co-founders Isaac Harrouche and Mike Berlin join to discuss the round of funding and where in the sports space they're looking to invest. They speak with hosts Tim Stenovec and Emily Graffeo, in for Carol Massar.

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Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show "Bloomberg Businessweek Daily."
Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec

Hear the show live at 2PM ET on WBBR 1130 AM New York, Bloomberg 92.9 FM Boston, WDCH 99.1 FM in Washington D.C. Metro, Sirius/XM channel 121, on the Bloomberg Business App, Radio.com, the iHeartRadio app and at Bloomberg.com/audio.

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President Donald Trump ramped up pressure on Iran as Vice President JD Vance traveled to Pakistan for talks to end the war, with Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon and the Strait of Hormuz’s effective closure looming over diplomatic efforts.

Trump posted on social media Friday that Tehran’s only leverage is “short term extortion of the world by using International Waterways” — a reference to Hormuz, a critical shipping lane for oil and natural gas that remains largely shut, raising global energy prices. Trump declared that the “Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards.”

While the two-week ceasefire was broadly holding across the Middle East, the situation with the strait and continued fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon threatened to complicate negotiations due to begin over the weekend in Islamabad.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf insisted in a social media post that a ceasefire in Lebanon is one measure that “must be fulfilled before negotiations begin.” The other is the “release of Iran’s blocked assets,” he added, without being more specific.

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Of all the prevailing media narratives around Gavin Newsom, the one that is most conspicuous by its absence is how under its two-term governor California became the top performing economy not just among its 49 siblings but also any developed nation. No wonder Elon Musk quietly sought Newsom’s help when the world’s richest man sought to move a bunch of Tesla Inc. engineers back to the state after relocating them to Texas. Amid the thousands of headlines referencing California failings with wildfires, droughts, floods, mass transportation, aging roads, education, homelessness, unaffordable housing, widening inequality and poverty along with the exodus of billionaires, corporate headquarters and longtime residents -- never mind the “slick” label whenever the betting favorite for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination is mentioned in the press – the Golden State (population 39 million people), just supplanted Japan (123 million) as the fourth-largest economy.

Matthew Winkler, Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief Emirtus discusses how California's economy has grown faster than either China or Germany... And picking up steam.

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Intel Corp., trying to promote the use of its technology in data centers, said Alphabet Inc.’s Google has committed to using future generations of its Xeon processors and other chips.

As part of the multiyear agreement, announced Thursday, the search engine giant will customize Intel’s IPUs, or infrastructure processing units. These chips handle functions such as networking, security and storage. The companies didn’t disclose financial details or purchase commitments.
The deal is part of a push by Intel to better capitalize on the build-out of artificial intelligence infrastructure. Getting a bigger slice of data center spending is critical to a comeback bid under Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan.Intel’s stock rose as much as 3.6% in New York trading, adding to a rally of about 20% this week. The shares have also benefited from an announcement that the chipmaker will help Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc., SpaceX and xAI.

Xeon once commanded a market share of more than 99%, making it the chief source of profit for what was then the world’s largest semiconductor maker. In the last few years, Intel has lost ground to rivals such as Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and in-house efforts by customers — including Google.

One trend is working in Intel’s favor: Central processing units, its hallmark product, are increasingly seen as critical to artificial intelligence computing. Though Nvidia Corp.’s AI processors are still the workhorses of this infrastructure, there’s growing demand for general-purpose CPUs to help everything run smoothly.

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Following Bloomberg Intelligence's list of 50 Companies to Watch in January, Tim Craighead, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior European Strategist and Director of Research-Content discusses 10 names you should know—for better or worse—in the second quarter. Bloomberg Intelligence analysts have identified the most interesting names from their group of high-confidence Focus Ideas. Spanning sectors and regions, each scenario outlines a catalyst in the next few months that supports our case.

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A growing number of Federal Reserve officials worried the Iran war could further stoke inflation and wanted to make clear following their March meeting that the central bank may have to consider raising interest rates.

Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s March 17-18 meeting, released Wednesday in Washington, showed policymakers wrestled with starkly differing scenarios for the US economy following the outbreak of the Iran war, and the policy reactions that might follow.
Most officials worried a protracted war could hurt the labor market and warrant lower interest rates. At the same time, many policymakers highlighted the risk to inflation that might ultimately warrant rate increases.

Officials in the latter camp appeared to become more strident, urging their colleagues to consider adding language to their post-meeting statement that raised the scenario of hiking rates under certain conditions.

“Some participants judged that there was a strong case for a two-sided description of the committee’s future interest-rate decisions in the post-meeting statement, reflecting the possibility that upward adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate could be appropriate if inflation were to remain at above-target levels,” the minutes said.
Echoing those concerns, the minutes noted the “vast majority” of officials thought it may take longer to return inflation to the Fed’s 2% goal.

At the meeting, officials held the Fed’s benchmark policy rate in a range of 3.5% to 3.75% at that gathering.

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DraftKings and FanDuel are thriving—but lax regulations, understaffed “responsible gambling” departments, and lack of resources for gambling addicts can make sports betting platforms uniquely insidious. For many users, this new 'vice' has cost them thousands, sometimes millions, while other profit. Danny Funt, Sports Journalist and author of 'Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling' discusses the unsettling truth about America's sports betting boom and how it can cost people everything they have.

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President Donald Trump has threatened “all Hell” will rain down on Iran if it doesn’t agree to a ceasefire that reopens the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. Eastern time on April 7. Is this a bluff intended to push Tehran to the negotiating table, or a credible threat?

With the deadline nearing, Iran rejected the latest US proposal for a deal to end the war and continued regional strikes. Trump intensified his threats — warning a “civilization will die tonight” — and the US reattacked Iran’s Kharg island. Further escalation appears more likely than negotiations. That’s consistent with our base case that the war will see a sharp escalation followed by a shift to lower-intensity fighting.

Treasuries fell amid mounting oil prices in the run-up to US President Donald Trump’s late-Tuesday deadline for Iran to agree to terms for ending American attacks.

The declines lifted yields by as much as five basis points, with long-maturity tenors rising most. Ten- and 30-year yields reached session highs against an array of conflicting signals about whether Trump’s threats of mass destruction are likely to come to pass.

Oil prices — a principal driver of Treasury yields since the US assault on Iran began Feb. 28 — rose, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude futures by as much as 4.6% from Monday’s multi-year high close. Yields reached year-to-date highs in late March as energy prices mounted, however they retreated from those levels amid mounting fears the oil shock will hit economic growth.

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Meet Mrs. Meyers: the 93-year-old woman who gave birth to nine children in ten years and inspired a legacy line of household cleaning products. One of her children decided to reinvent the tired, toxic, and boring category of household cleaning products by creating her own competition, in her mother's inspiration.

Monica Nassif, is founder of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day and author of the new book, 'I Bottled My Mother: The Mrs. Meyer’s Story: Grit, Grime & Growing a Business'. She discusses tips of building a startup, the challenges of raising money as a woman in business, and daily meditations from Mrs. Meyers.

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President Donald Trump ramped up his threats ahead of a deadline he’s imposed for Iran to re-open the Strait of Hormuz or face further attacks on civilian infrastructure, while Tehran rejected a ceasefire proposal.

“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said in a press conference Monday at the White House, in an apparent reference to his ultimatum to Iran that expires at 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

“Every bridge in Iran will be decimated, by 12 o’clock tomorrow night,” Trump said. “Every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again,” he added, noting that “it’ll happen over a period of four hours, if we wanted to. We don’t want that to happen.”
Trump told reporters earlier on Monday that it was “highly unlikely” that he’d move the deadline again. Iran, meanwhile, reportedly passed to mediator Pakistan a rejection of a ceasefire proposal. 

The regime demanded a permanent end to the war, lifting of sanctions, and reconstruction efforts, in addition to protocol for safe passage through Hormuz, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. The rejection is the latest blow to efforts to end the month-long war that has triggered a global energy crisis.

US allies are reportedly pressing for a last-minute deal with Iran, as Trump extended his deadline to Tuesday for Tehran to reopen the vital waterway. Trump during his press conference noted that free traffic of oil in Hormuz must be part of any deal to end the war.

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Capitalism For All: Inclusive Economics and the Future-Proofing of America by John Hope Bryant presents a revolutionary framework for rebuilding American prosperity through economic inclusion rather than division. As the founder and CEO of Operation HOPE, America's first non-profit social investment banking organization, and a former vice-chairman of the President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, Bryant brings decades of frontline experience empowering underserved communities. This book addresses America's growing economic inequality and social fragmentation by demonstrating how inclusive capitalism – not exclusionary policies – can restore the middle class, revitalize the American Dream, and maintain our position as the world's leading economy.

John Hope Bryant joins Bloomberg Businessweek to discuss how expanding rather than contracting our middle class strengthens national security and economic competitiveness and how inclusive economics positions America as a beacon of opportunity and strengthens our international influence.

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Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show "Bloomberg Businessweek Daily."
Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec

Hear the show live at 2PM ET on WBBR 1130 AM New York, Bloomberg 92.9 FM Boston, WDCH 99.1 FM in Washington D.C. Metro, Sirius/XM channel 121, on the Bloomberg Business App, Radio.com, the iHeartRadio app and at Bloomberg.com/audio.

You can also watch Bloomberg Businessweek on YouTube - just search for Bloomberg Global News.
Like us at Bloomberg Radio on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @carolmassar @timsteno and @BW

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Attorney General Pam Bondi is leaving her post as head of the US Justice Department, ending a tumultuous tenure as the nation’s top law enforcement official after some high-profile stumbling blocks in her efforts to carry out President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future, and our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

In choosing Blanche to serve as acting attorney general, Trump has elevated another one of his former defense lawyers to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.
Blanche served as Trump’s defense attorney in criminal cases relating to the 2020 election, his handling of classified documents and alleged hush-money payments.

Blanche can serve in the acting role for 210 days under a federal law for filling vacancies while the Senate considers whoever Trump nominates to be confirmed as attorney general.
The president has discussed Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin as a potential replacement for Bondi, according to people familiar with the matter.

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Firms lobby public institutions even when associations they are members of are lobbying those same institutions. This is what we conceptualize as ‘parallel lobbying’. Firms engage in parallel lobbying to monitor associations they are members of, reinforce the message delivered by the associations, provide additional or nuanced information that goes beyond the lowest common denominator, or even to break ranks from the collective position and signal a different message to the one provided by the association. Regardless of what the rationale behind these parallel meetings is, this article intends to bring new light into this phenomenon by examining the extent to which parallel lobbying occurs at the EU level and, more importantly, unveiling what firm – and association-level characteristics explain why firms exercise parallel lobbying.

Angel Saz, Professor at Ramon Lulull University and Director of EsadeGeo – Centre for Global Economy and Geopolitics, a leading B-school in Spain, discusses his work in parallel lobbying and how it is playing out in the world of global business. He speaks with Bloomberg's Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec, and Bloomberg Businessweek Senior Editor Dimitra Kessenide

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NASA astronauts are poised to lift off Wednesday on a 10-day journey that will slingshot them around the moon, marking humanity’s return to the lunar vicinity for the first time in more than half a century.

The crew’s Lockheed Martin Corp.-built Orion capsule, perched atop the Boeing Co.-made Space Launch System rocket, is set to launch at 6:24 p.m. local time from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The mission is a crucial, in-space dress rehearsal for the long-delayed SLS rocket and Orion capsule, and marks the biggest milestone yet in NASA’s multi-year Artemis campaign to land humans on the moon as soon as 2028. If the mission launches on schedule, the four-person crew will travel farther in space than anyone in history.

President Donald Trump’s NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, and former astronaut and US Senator Mark Kelly attended the send-off.Earlier, European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher joined other NASA officials, lawmakers and industry executives walking the press site, conducting interviews. TV outlets set up white tents on the lawn outside to capture the giant SLS rocket standing a few miles away.
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More and more Americans are turning to consumer AI platforms for medical information. Until now, those educational conversations with AI have taken place outside of the healthcare system. Without access to the user’s private and secure medical information, educational information provided by the AI tool may not be as meaningful to the user. Today, Harford HealthCare and K Health announced the launch of PatientGPT, the nation’s first AI system with the ability to securely access the user’s medical record. PatientGPT, accessible right within the Hartford HealthCare patient portal and app, is rolling out as a beta version for a limited number of patients to try.

Jeff Flaks is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hartford HealthCare, a $7.0-billion enterprise that cares for more than 27,000 people daily. Allon Block co-founded K Health after being inspired by his own frustration with the U.S. healthcare system to build a better solution. They speak with Bloomberg's Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec.

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US President Donald Trump called on other nations to wrest control of the Strait of Hormuz as Iran maintained missile fire across the Persian Gulf, expressing his frustration that the monthlong war remains unresolved.

Countries that can’t get energy supplies due to the effective closure of the vital waterway should “go to the Strait and just TAKE IT,” Trump said in a social-media post on Tuesday.“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself” as the US “won’t be there to help you anymore,” he added, the latest sign he’s looking to exit a conflict that’s triggered a surge in oil and gas prices and stoked fears of a global economic crisis. “Go get your own oil!” he added.

Stocks climbed and oil prices fell on hopes that both US and Iran might be looking for a way out of the war. WTI Crude was trading around $101 a barrel, travel stocks climbed and the S&P Energy Index turned negative, giving up an earlier gain of as much as 1.4%.

Those moves came after Iran’s state news agency reported a phone call between European Union Council President Antonio Costa and President Masoud Pezeskhian, who said the Islamic Republic has “the necessary will to end this war,” but only with guarantees “to prevent the recurrence of aggression.” It wasn’t immediately clear if his comments represent a change in Tehran’s position.
Tehran kept up strikes on Israel and countries around the Persian Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with one attack hitting a large Kuwaiti oil tanker off the coast of Dubai. That was one of the most significant assaults on shipping since the US and Israel began bombarding the Islamic Republic on Feb. 28.

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Mandy Oser is the owner of Ardesia in Hell’s Kitchen, a neighborhood wine bar she opened in the Fall of 2009 as a place where both those with a deeper knowledge of wine as well as novices can find a selection that will satisfy. She discusses the wine industry, how many are male dominated but highlighting women wineries owned and made by woman. And the increase of wine sales this month.

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The White House threatened further escalation of attacks on Iran, including critical civilian energy infrastructure, as the fifth week of war jolts global markets with little sign of relief.

President Donald Trump earlier on Monday posted on social media that if Tehran doesn’t re-open the Strait of Hormuz, “we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating” electricity plants, oil facilities and “possibly” desalination infrastructure.

Trump has regularly vacillated between saying a deal with Iran is imminent and warning he’s prepared to increase the military tempo. The threat to water facilities would constitute a war crime as defined by the Geneva Conventions. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the US is “conducting more intense, targeted strikes with devastating combat power with each passing day” and the US operations are proceeding “according to plan,” even as she echoed the president in saying talks are on track. The administration hasn’t identified which Iranian officials it’s dealing with, directly or indirectly.

Despite the mystery surrounding peace talks, Leavitt said the Iranians were “increasingly eager” to negotiate and agreed to “some of the points” that the US has put forward to end the conflict. Iran has consistently said peace talks aren’t progressing and has signaled it can carry on fighting for much longer.

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In 2017, a small crew gathered in a windowless Pentagon room to put AI at the heart of how America makes war. Led by Drew Cukor, an unyielding Marine Corps colonel driven by the deaths of US troops and the prospect of war with an AI-equipped China, the Project Maven team raced to send AI into combat, igniting controversy and forever changing the US military. Summoning the mayhem of a tech startup, the Maven team wrestled Pentagon bureaucrats and each other. They enlisted an initially reluctant Silicon Valley, supercharged the growth of Palantir, and sent algorithms made by Amazon, Microsoft, and others into hot wars. Maven fielded technology to identify targets at speed and scale, developed AI-infused command systems, and learned where AI fails.

Katrina Manson, Bloomberg News Reporter covering technology and national security, talks about her book Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare.

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If you want to build a diversified portfolio, you need to assemble assets that respond to different return drivers. Digital assets can play a central role. For starters, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin behave differently than traditional equities or commodities, giving portfolios exposure to unique sources of risk and return. And within the crypto universe, you can find coins, protocols, and equities that all behave differently under different market conditions. By investing in a wide range of digital assets you can potentially both mitigate risk and improve returns. 

This episode is sponsored by Coinbase.

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This is a special presentation of Businessweek Convenes, a series dedicated to bringing together prominent leaders for frank discussions on vital, often sensitive subjects. In this episode, we delve into a crucial topic: the state of Black leadership in corporate America amid the rollbacks to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the country. Bloomberg's Romaine Bostick leads this discussion with prominent business and finance veterans Ursula Burns, Nicole Reboe, Jacob Walthour, Jr., Lisa Wardell, and Chris Williams.

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Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show "Bloomberg Businessweek Daily."
Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec

Hear the show live at 2PM ET on WBBR 1130 AM New York, Bloomberg 92.9 FM Boston, WDCH 99.1 FM in Washington D.C. Metro, Sirius/XM channel 121, on the Bloomberg Business App, Radio.com, the iHeartRadio app and at Bloomberg.com/audio.

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The Trump administration is signaling to allies that it has no immediate plans for a ground invasion of Iran, even as it deploys thousands of troops to the Middle East, people familiar with the matter said. The people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations, cautioned that President Donald Trump could change his mind at any moment or go ahead with an attack. They said the troops could serve a variety of roles, including to help with evacuations of American citizens but also to create a sense of strategic ambiguity about US intentions.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday the US can achieve its objectives in Iran without the use of ground troops but their presence gives Trump options.

“The president has to be prepared for multiple contingencies, which I’m not going to discuss in the media,” Rubio told reporters. “We can achieve all of our objectives without ground troops. But we are always going to be prepared to give the president maximum optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust to contingencies should they emerge.”

A White House official, who requested anonymity to describe internal thinking, said it’s the Pentagon’s job to develop plans to give the president optionality, and noted that Trump has previously said he has no plans to send ground troops anywhere at this time. The official said Iran will be hit harder than ever before if they fail to make a deal.

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As U.S. companies reassess exposure to tariffs and trade volatility and pull back on international expansion, Bermuda remains a steady destination for U.S. private wealth and business investment. Bermuda’s leading industry clusters are 90%+ dominated by professional services sectors including risk and insurance, digital finance, and private wealth management.

David Parker, Bermuda Business Development Agency (BDA) Head of Business Development, discusses how the jurisdiction has become a competitive region in the global financial and tech markets -- often cited as a “regulatory sandbox” for innovation, modernization and clear neutrality.

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US President Donald Trump sent conflicting signals on the prospect that talks with Iran would bring a halt to the nearly month-long war, further roiling global energy markets.“I say they’re lousy fighters, but they’re great negotiators, and they are begging to work out a deal,” Trump said Thursday during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that. I don’t know if we’re willing to do that,” he said, and separately threatened to intensify military action if talks failed.

Asked whether his five-day deadline for a deal would be extended, the US president was blunt: “I don’t know yet.”Trump said special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, as well as Vice President JD Vance “will tell me whether or not they think it’s going along.” He added “we have a lot of time” before the deadline, issued Monday morning in Washington, expires.

“It’s a day. In Trump time, a day, you know what it is? That’s an eternity,” he added.
Oil prices surged, with optimism fading of a quick resolution to the conflict. Brent crude climbed 6% to more than $108 a barrel, while stocks and bonds fell worldwide.

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The patient-provider relationship is at the heart of healthcare. But that relationship is starting to shift. There's a new presence in the exam room. One that lives on patents' phones, shows up before the visit begins, and too often stays hidden. It's artificial intelligence.

Oliver Kharraz is Founder and CEO of Zocdoc, the healthcare access infrastructure that connects patients to health care. He discusses why patients are turning to AI, why many are not disclosing AI use and the future of care given the support of patient AI use from doctors.

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The White House insisted that peace talks with Iran are ongoing, even as Tehran publicly rejected US overtures and issued fresh conditions of its own to end the conflict that’s wreaked havoc across the Middle East and global markets.

“The United States has been engaged over the last three days in productive conversations,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday. “You’re beginning to see the regime look for an exit ramp.”
“If Iran fails to accept the reality of the current moment,” Leavitt added, “Trump will ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before. President Trump does not bluff and he is prepared to unleash hell.”

Her comments ran counter to Iran’s earlier statements through state-run media publicly rejecting Trump’s push for talks. Tehran is also seeking its own guarantees, including that the US and Israel won’t resume their attacks, reparations for war damages and recognition of its authority over the Strait of Hormuz, state-owned Press TV said.

Trump on Monday set a five-day deadline for Iran to negotiate a deal to end the war. Halfway through that period, there are lingering questions over the status of negotiations and the likelihood for a deal.

The US has compiled a 15-point peace proposal that Pakistan delivered to the Islamic Republic, according to people familiar with the matter, highlighting the urgency within Trump’s administration to resolve a conflict it started alongside Israel almost a month ago. Leavitt on Wednesday said there were “elements of truth” to the reported US proposal, but cautioned against speculating on anonymously provided plans.

Vice President JD Vance may travel to Pakistan for Iran talks this weekend, CNN reported. Asked for comment on that report, Leavitt said “this is a fluid situation, and speculation about meetings should not be deemed as final until they are formally announced by the White House.”

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When Elon Musk took the stage on Saturday to unveil his plans to get into semiconductor production, he didn’t spare the superlatives. No one has ever proposed anything quite like what Musk calls Terafab. The project, as outlined, would be a massive operation to build cutting-edge semiconductors for artificial intelligence, robotics and space forays. He would not only try to take on the best chip manufacturer in the world — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. — he wants to do it at volumes far beyond the industry’s current capacity. The scale boggles the mind. The project would require something like $5 trillion to $13 trillion in capital spending, according to estimates from Bernstein analysts. That would fund 140 to 360 new factories, each making 50,000 wafers per month in order to reach the 1 terawatt of annual computing capacity he proposed.

Max Chafkin, Bloomberg Businessweek Senior Reporter, discusses how Musk, by far the richest person in the world, has accomplished what others believed impossible before — creating a commercially viable rocket business with SpaceX, bringing electric vehicles to the mainstream with Tesla Inc., and delivering internet connectivity from space with Starlink.

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Stephen Nesbitt was on no one’s list of Wall Street heavyweights when he bumped into a thirty-something salesman pitching the next big thing for wealthy investors: private credit.
Nesbitt — who, as it happened, had written a book on private debt — took the idea and ran with it.Within a few years, he and his son Blake transformed their modest consulting business, Cliffwater LLC, into an unlikely giant. Their strategy: rather than sweat the details of every direct loan themselves, they’d piggyback on the firms that did. They’d also invest in industry heavyweights, creating something akin to a fund-of-private-credit-funds.

Now the father-and-son team, who rode private credit on the way up, risk falling hard on the way down. As investors in private credit funds rush for the exits, Cliffwater has become one of the biggest question marks in the $1.8 trillion industry.

The worry isn’t so much that private loans will go bad all at once and crush the funds where Cliffwater has invested. It’s that antsy investors will keep asking for money back, prompting Cliffwater to dash for cash itself — instigating a vicious circle of redemptions and markdowns.
Concerns center around the $33 billion Cliffwater Corporate Lending Fund, the largest of its kind in private credit. It’s what’s known as an interval fund, a type of closed-end vehicle that isn’t traded on an exchange but rather promises to buy back shares from investors at set intervals, usually quarterly, at net asset value. Cliffwater is legally obliged to buy back at least 5% every quarter if investors ask.That promise was a key selling point in good times. “Liquidity is the first-, second- and third-most important thing,” Blake Nesbitt emphasized at an industry roundtable this month.

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Nicolai Tangen, boss of Norway's sovereign wealth fund, visited the Middle East and was struck by the area's dynamism, but hours after his departure, the region erupted in a war. The fund is planning for potentially bleak scenarios, including the return of inflation and geopolitical fragmentation, which could have direct consequences for the fund and implications for the stock market. For more, Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec spoke with Bloomberg Opinion Columisnt Lionel Laurent

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During an all-hands meeting at Apple in January, an employee asked about a spate of executive moves. The company’s chief operating officer recently retired, the chief financial officer and general counsel took smaller roles as a way to prepare for their own retirements, and in a single week in December its heads of artificial intelligence, user interfaces and environmental initiatives all announced their departures.While part of the exodus was related to Apple Inc.’s well-documented struggles in AI, it also reflected a logical transition at a company that turns 50 on April 1.

Apple stock has made everyone at the top of its org chart fabulously wealthy, and many are entering the stage of life that often inspires people to prioritize finally spending some time with their families instead of the next generation of iPhones. In his response to the employee’s question, Tim Cook, the company’s 65-year-old chief executive officer, struck an atypically reflective tone. “When people get to a certain age, some,” he said, “are going to retire,” letting the word “some” hang out there in a way that suggested he wasn’t talking about himself, drawing laughter from the audience. “The thing we have to do is make sure that Apple moves on” and reaches the “next level and the next level and the next level.” Cook added that he spends “a lot of time” thinking about “who’s in the room” in 5, 10 and 15 years. “I am obsessed with this.”

Cook, who’s run Apple since taking over from co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011, probably doesn’t expect to be in the room himself for another 15 years. While he’s given no indication of an imminent transition, he’s made it clear he wants his heir to come from within the company so he can serve as a mentor. The central candidate is John Ternus, senior vice president for hardware engineering, who oversees development of the devices that generate roughly 80% of Apple’s revenue. At 50, Ternus is also younger than many of the company’s other senior leaders, meaning he could be in the top job longer.

Ternus has spent about half his life at Apple. He cut his teeth developing computer monitors, oversaw product design for the original iPad and eventually took over development of the Mac. Since getting the top hardware engineering role in 2021, he’s overseen an expansion in Apple’s product lineup, improving quality and focusing on functional improvements around battery life, performance and connectivity. Earlier this month, when Apple held an event in New York to announce the MacBook Neo, a $599 laptop, it was Ternus, not Cook, who did the big reveal. The next day, Ternus also appeared on Good Morning America to talk up the device, the type of media appearance Cook has generally done himself.

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Stocks and bonds rebounded after President Donald Trump said the US and Iran had “very good” conversations about an end to the conflict in the Middle East.  
President rump said strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure and power plants would be postponed for five days following the start of talks with Iran to end the war.  
For details on this development, Tom Keene and Paul Sweeney speak with Bloomberg Middle East Reporter Joumanna Bercetche, Silvercrest Asset Management Head of Investment Policy & Strategy Robert Teeter, and Veda Partners Co-Founder Henrietta Treyz.

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The US charged Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw, a co-founder of Super Micro Computer Inc., with illegally diverting Nvidia Corp.-powered servers to China in violation of US export controls. Liaw and two others allegedly sold the hardware to a Southeast Asian company and coordinated for its ultimate shipment to Chinese customers, and they made efforts to evade scrutiny by auditors from both Super Micro and the US government. Super Micro said it is cooperating with US authorities and has put Liaw and another defendant on administrative leave, and the company stated that the alleged conduct “is a contravention of the company’s policies and compliance controls”.

For more Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec speaks with Bloomberg Legal reporter Bob Van Voris.

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Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show "Bloomberg Businessweek Daily."

Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec

Hear the show live at 2PM ET on WBBR 1130 AM New York, Bloomberg 92.9 FM Boston, WDCH 99.1 FM in Washington D.C. Metro, Sirius/XM channel 121, on the Bloomberg Business App, Radio.com, the iHeartRadio app and at Bloomberg.com/audio.

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US officials say the White House is sending hundreds of Marines to the Middle East as it weighs a plan to seize Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub. Deploying even a small number of troops on the ground in Iran carries huge risks for President Donald Trump.

Any effort to seize and hold Iran’s energy facilities would put US troops in far greater danger than they’ve already been exposed to so far in the conflict, which has seen 13 US fatalities to date. It would also add to the cost and scope of the conflict beyond an air campaign.

Just as charged would be the symbolism of American troops landing on Iranian soil and the accusation that Trump — who shot to popularity in part by criticizing the open-ended wars that dogged his predecessors — might be starting one of his own.

He said deploying a Marine Expeditionary Unit there would have “substantial risk of casualties, and with no obvious next step as to how such an action really accelerates regime change or even Iran’s willingness to negotiate an end to hostilities.”

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The sense of growing hostility toward business leaders and others in power is everywhere, coinciding with dueling populist political movements, and has been heightened by the refusal of many former Epstein pals to take responsibility for associating with him. The Epstein files have exposed a code of elite silence around a sex offender, and many of America's business icons and politicians must stop minimizing their roles in what happened and start making real amends to move forward.

Max Chafkin, Bloomberg Businessweek Senior Reporter and co-host of the Everybody’s Business podcast writes about how the Epstein files fallout is a crisis for elites —and an opportunity. He speaks with Bloomberg's Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec.

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Each week the world’s largest liquefied natural gas plant remains shut, the world loses the equivalent of enough energy to power Sydney’s homes for an entire year.

Qatar’s Ras Laffan plant closed earlier this month after an Iranian drone attack, the first interruption to supply in three decades of operation. Now, after further hits — in retaliation for an Israeli strike on the vast South Pars fields on Wednesday — the wider complex has suffered what Qatar describes as extensive damage.

The latest assault damaged t​​​​​​wo of the plant’s fourteen production trains, with repairs expected to take years, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg. That will put severe energy strain on economies across the world. For emerging nations — vital growth markets for LNG — a second gas calamity in four years is already destroying industrial demand, perhaps irreparably.Three weeks of conflict in the Middle East have upended the entire energy supply chain. With the vital Strait of Hormuz all but closed, gasoline and jet fuel prices are surging, cooking gas shortages are triggering fistfights in India and farmers are fretting about diesel and fertilizer. But with virtually no spare capacity, no strategic reserves and no easy replacements, LNG may be one of the most acute pain points in an expanding crisis.

The longer this continues, the only solution is for the world to use less gas — and that’s a major setback for a fuel promoted by the industry as a reliable and affordable bridge from dirty coal to full reliance on renewable power. Without gas, power plants curtail output, fertilizer and textile factories shut. The ripple effect from a long-term shock could be even more significant than the 2022 energy crisis, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced dramatic changes in global gas flows.
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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he plans to stay at the central bank until after the Justice Department’s investigation is complete.

“I have no intention of leaving the board until the investigation is well and truly over, with transparency and finality,” Powell said Wednesday at a press conference.

His comments marked the first time Powell has given any public indication that he intends to continue serving his term as a governor, which runs until 2028, after his term as chair expires in May. Speculation he would do so has increased in recent months amid a government probe into the US central bank.

The DOJ in January issued subpoenas to the Fed as part of an investigation into cost overruns in a building renovation project. In a statement at the time, Powell called the reasons for the investigation pretexts and said the probe was really triggered by the Fed’s refusal to set interest rates based on President Donald Trump’s demands.

The subpoenas were blocked by a federal judge earlier this month, but the DOJ said it would appeal that decision.

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There’s been a lot of negative media around “private credit,” but most of that conversation is focused on leveraged corporate lending. Real estate credit is a different market — loans are asset-backed and underwritten to hard collateral. We’re in the middle of a significant housing shortage in the U.S., particularly in major urban markets like New York. That structural demand continues to support new housing development and well-located multifamily assets. There’s increasing attention from policymakers around housing affordability and supply, including proposals from figures like Zohran Mamdani. Regardless of the political approach, there’s broad recognition that more housing needs to be built and that capital will be needed to support that supply.

Ran Eliasaf is Founder and Manager Partner of Northwind Group, an institutional real estate credit platform focused on lending and structured financing for commercial real estate and healthcare assets. Since its founding in 2008, the firm has transacted on more than $9 billion of real estate across over 400 properties and originated approximately $4 billion of loans secured by more than 300 properties, with zero principal losses across its debt investments to date. Ran speaks with Bloomberg's Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec.

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Regenerative Social Finance (RSF) is an impact-first financial services organization. They offer investment notes, donor-advised funds, and loans to mission-driven organizations to mobilize money to have a positive social and environmental impact. They have invested in healthier food systems, whole-child education, cleaner climates, stronger communities, and more.

Kathleen Paylor is Vice President of Impact Investing and Philanthropy at Regenerative Social Finance (RSF), where she works with investors to align financial returns with measurable social and environmental impact. She speaks on how women and high-net-worth investors increasingly rethinking how they allocate capital

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Iran has stepped up attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent days, signaling it’s targeting the oil-rich kingdom more aggressively than earlier in the war.

Tehran launched almost 100 drones at Saudi Arabia on Monday, far above the previous daily average of less than 25, according to data released by the Saudi defense ministry. The barrage marked the largest single-day strike on the country since the war began.

The surge started last week and has since intensified, with attacks increasingly concentrated on the kingdom’s eastern province, home to major oil infrastructure. The escalation underscores Iran’s ability to destabilize the wider Gulf, threatening shipping lanes — particularly the vital Strait of Hormuz — and energy facilities.

Iran is relying more heavily on drones than missiles as the conflict drags on. Drones typically carry smaller payloads than ballistic or cruise missiles and tend to cause less destruction, though they can still inflict significant damage depending on the target. Their relatively low cost and ability to be launched in large numbers make them a persistent challenge for air-defense systems.

Launches have declined since the start of the war, but that doesn’t mean Tehran is running short of weapons. Despite US and Israeli strikes on stockpiles, launchers and drone factories, Iran remains able to sustain attacks.

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Oura said it is acquiring Helsinki-based Doublepoint Technologies Oy, which specializes in technology that allows users to control wearable devices with small hand movements using a combination of artificial intelligence and biometric data. The purchase will guide future versions of Oura’s smart rings, where hand gestures could play a central role to the experience, along with possibly voice control. 

Holly Shelton, Oura Chief Product Officer, speaks on why most health technology was not designed with women’s bodies in mind and why is it so important to build health products specifically for women?

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Nvidia, the company at the center of an explosive build-out of AI computing, expects to generate at least $1 trillion from its Blackwell and Rubin chips through the end of 2027.The company had previously forecast that the chips would bring $500 billion in sales by the end of 2026. The latest forecast, delivered by Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang during the company’s GTC event, extends the outlook.

The forecast underscores the scale of Nvidia’s business, which has been supercharged by demand for chips that develop and run AI models. But the cumulative figure doesn’t suggest a tremendous acceleration in sales growth.

After initially rising as much as 4.8%, the shares soon pared their gains on Monday.A flood of spending on AI chips has turned Nvidia into the world’s most valuable company. But investors have sought more evidence that the market’s growth remains on track. Nvidia is also facing mounting competition from rivals like Advanced Micro Devices Inc., as well as its own customers attempting to produce in-house chips to handle AI.

The company has accelerated its technology development in recent years. Nvidia tries to replace its entire product lineup on an annual basis while adding new components. The next design of its flagship AI processors, appearing in systems in the second half of 2026, is called Vera Rubin. The lineup is named for the pioneering astronomer whose observations provided evidence supporting the existence of dark matter.

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You've probably heard of the pink tax—that additional price women pay to exist in the same world as men. Now meet the double tax, the compounded cost of racism and sexism or the pink tax and then some. The Double Tax dares to ask why it’s so expensive to be a woman in America and why it doesn’t have to be this way.

In The Double Tax, Harvard researcher Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman summarizes the disparities that women face as they navigate life’s biggest moments. Not only do the numbers reveal that women incur higher costs than men, but also that Black and white women lead vastly different lives, marked by dramatic gaps in job opportunities, salaries, housing costs, childcare access, and generational wealth. She coins this gap as the “double tax,” the compounded cost of racism and sexism. She speaks with Bloomberg's Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec, and Norah Mulinda.

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Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show "Bloomberg Businessweek Daily."
Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec

Hear the show live at 2PM ET on WBBR 1130 AM New York, Bloomberg 92.9 FM Boston, WDCH 99.1 FM in Washington D.C. Metro, Sirius/XM channel 121, on the Bloomberg Business App, Radio.com, the iHeartRadio app and at Bloomberg.com/audio.

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A federal judge rejected as improper Justice Department subpoenas issued to the Federal Reserve Board seeking records relating to its renovations of its headquarters and Chair Jerome Powell’s comments to Congress about the project.

US District Judge James Boasberg said the government had advanced no evidence to justify the subpoenas and said they clearly reflected an “improper motive” of retaliating against Powell over policy differences. Jeanine Pirro, who leads the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, called the ruling wrong and said they would appeal the decision.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The Fed declined to comment.

“A mountain of evidence suggests that the government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning,” Boasberg said. “On the other side of the scale, the government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the court can only conclude that they are pretextual.”

DOJ issued subpoenas to the Fed in January threatening a criminal indictment, Powell said at the time. The subpoenas are related to the Fed’s ongoing $2.5 billion renovation of its headquarters in Washington and testimony Powell provided about the construction before the Senate Banking panel last year.

Powell, in an unusually forceful video response to the subpoenas, characterized the investigation as motivated by the Fed refusing to set interest rates according to the preferences of President Donald Trump.

Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor, has been nominated by Trump to replace Powell when the latter’s term as chair ends in May. North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, has vowed to block any Fed nominations as long as the DOJ investigation of Powell remains unresolved. Tillis reiterated that commitment this week.

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Today the world of private equity and credit is a rancid pool of conflicts and illegality that cannot possibly be seen as superior to public markets. Private equity executives even enjoy special tax provisions from Congress for "carried interest" to reward them for their efforts in soaking investors. Advocates of private schemes like crypto tokens, which are explicitly not considered securities, buy and sell Members of Congress like chattel.

Chris Whalen, former banker and risk analyst weighs in on the latest concerns in private credit on the back of this week’s headlines including JPMorgan Chase restricting some lending to private credit funds after marking down the value of certain software-linked loans in its portfolios. AS well as Morgan Stanley and Cliffwater capping withdrawals from their private credit funds

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Iran’s new supreme leader said the Strait of Hormuz should remain shut and Tehran will look to open other fronts in the war if the US and Israel persist with their attacks.

In his first public comments since succeeding his father at the weekend, Mojtaba Khamenei said the Islamic Republic would seek to ensure the critical waterway for oil and gas stays effectively closed — maintaining a choke on supplies that’s triggered a surge in global energy prices.

His statement — published on state media on Thursday — came as US President Donald Trump said preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons and being a threat to the Middle East is “of far greater interest and importance to me” than the cost of oil.The defiance shown by both leaders indicates that the war in the Middle East isn’t close to a de-escalation after almost two weeks of fighting. Israel launched a fresh wave of large-scale strikes across Iran on Thursday, while the Islamic Republic stepped up attacks on Dubai and shipping assets.

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WWE Superstar Charlotte Flair (Ashley Fliehr) has joined Self-Care Is For Everyone (SCIFE) as the brand’s first Angel Investor and official Brand Champion. Ashley’s investment will directly fund SCIFE’s expansion from a viral apparel-led advocacy brand into a multi-platform mental health media and product company. For Ashley, this investment is deeply personal — as an elite performer who has navigated the pressures of global visibility, injury, reinvention, and resilience, she believes mental strength and emotional well-being are foundational to long-term success.

Backing SCIFE is her commitment to normalizing self-care conversations and ensuring mental health support is accessible, aspirational, and stigma-free for the next generation. She speaks with Bloomberg's Carol Massar and Norah Mulinda.

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A key measure of US inflation was tame at the start of the year. But another metric is shaping up to paint a very different picture.Wednesday’s report on the consumer price index showed core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, was mild in both January and February — a pleasant surprise as companies tend to raise prices at the turn of the year. Yet economists expect another gauge, one preferred by the Federal Reserve and set for release on Friday, was probably rather strong in both months.

The fact that the personal consumption expenditures price index has been outpacing the CPI is already unusual. Typically it’s been the other way around, as a higher weighting on housing costs in the CPI tends to keep that measure relatively elevated.
Now the wedge appears to be deepening. Should the core PCE rise 3.1% in the year through January as economists expect, it would exceed the annual core CPI by one of the widest margins in decades.

The divergence began before the Iran war, which has sent oil prices sharply higher and renewed risks of a broader acceleration in inflation. That puts the Fed in a tough spot. While policymakers are broadly expected to leave interest rates unchanged next week, a sustained pickup in price pressures would make it difficult for officials to justify resuming rate cuts in coming months to shore up a fragile labor market.

The PCE price index, a product of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, draws from the CPI for several price categories. In the wake of the latest CPI data, economists were quick to boost their forecast for the February core PCE price index, which is due April 9. Several projected it would rise 0.4% for a second month, with some penciling in a bigger pickup.

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The son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will become Iran’s next supreme leader, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency announced, taking over after his father was killed in an attack by the US and Israel. Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, is the third person to lead the Islamic Republic and the first example of hereditary succession since the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy in the 1979 revolution. Iran’s Assembly of Experts elected the country’s next supreme leader in a “decisive vote,” according to Fars. The vote took place hours before the result was made public. Alex Vatanka, Middle East Institute Senior Fellow, joins Bloomberg Businessweek Daily to discuss Mojtaba Khamenei's ascent and what it means for Iran and global relations.

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Energy markets whipsawed for a second consecutive day as investors raced to interpret rapidly shifting comments from the Trump administration over the war in Iran.

Oil prices plummeted after Energy Secretary Chris Wright erroneously posted — and then deleted — a message that the US Navy had escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz, only for White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to subsequently concede no such operation had occurred. But, the spokeswoman said, the US military was “drawing up additional options” to address any attempt by Iran to constrain trade through the vital artery.

Later Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump posted his own flurry of messages on social media. First, Trump insisted the US had “no reports” of mines being placed, but then urged Iranian forces to remove any explosives they may have laid.

Next, Trump said the US was “using the same Technology and Missile capabilities deployed against Drug Traffickers” to target mining ships. Minutes later, the president reported that the US had “hit, and completely destroyed, 10 inactive mine laying boats” and promised “more to follow.”
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As fans of FX’s new limited series, Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette search for real-life versions of the characters' wardrobes, they're running into roadblocks. According to Google Trends, searches for “Calvin Klein 90s” shot up 850% in the US the week Love Story premiered. When customers found more fleece joggers and graphic tees on its website than the sleek basics they were looking for, some turned to secondhand sellers. PVH Corp., the apparel conglomerate that bought the Calvin Klein brand from the designer of the same name in 2003, declined to comment on its CBK strategy—or lack thereof—citing a quiet period ahead of its next earnings release.

Dina Katgara, Bloomberg News Consumer Reporter, joins Bloomberg Businessweek Daily to discuss. She speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec.

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President Donald Trump made an emphatic declaration on Friday about his intentions in the widening Middle East war: He’d accept no deal with Iran other than “unconditional surrender” and pledged the US “will work tirelessly” to restore the country’s economy if a new leader is installed whom he deems acceptable.Nearly a week in, the military campaign has sent oil prices soaring and roiled equity and bond markets across the globe. The online missive showed the president — who campaigned as a pro-peace candidate — is digging in on policies that threaten to tear his fragile political coalition apart.

The revolt of “Make America Great Again” influencers including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Marjorie Taylor Greene, along with several GOP politicians, has produced a chorus of betrayal. “No one should have to die for a foreign country,” Kelly said on her radio show this week.
Their backlash comes after Trump has already tested his base’s loyalty with an earlier strike on Iran and an operation in Venezuela to capture Nicolas Maduro that represent the kind of military adventurism he’d built his political career on rejecting, as well as his handling of the Epstein files, which frustrated some MAGA devotees who expected the swift and full transparency he promised.

At the same time, the Iran campaign risks alienating the more-casual Trump voters who cast a ballot for him hoping he’d shore up the economy, and see Middle East conflict as a distraction — or even a hindrance. Gasoline prices this week rose to their highest level at any time during a Trump presidency.

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Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show “Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.” Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec Hear the show live at 2PM ET on WBBR 1130 AM New York, Bloomberg 92.9 FM Boston, WDCH 99.1 FM in Washington D.C. Metro, Sirius/XM channel 121, on the Bloomberg Business App, Radio.com, the iHeartRadio app and at Bloomberg.com/audio. You can also watch Bloomberg Businessweek on YouTube - just search for Bloomberg Global News. Like us at Bloomberg Radio on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @carolmassar @timsteno and @BW

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Oracle Corp. and OpenAI have scrapped plans to expand a flagship artificial intelligence data center in Texas after negotiations dragged over financing and OpenAI’s changing needs.

The collapsed talks created an opening for Meta Platforms Inc. to step in and consider leasing the planned expansion site in Abilene, Texas, from developer Crusoe, according to people familiar with the matter. Nvidia Corp., the leading AI chipmaker, helped facilitate Meta’s discussions with the developer, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.

The shifting plans underscore the complexity of building out AI data centers, which are expected to cost in the tens of billions of dollars and require cooperation from a wide swath of partners.

The campus being developed by Crusoe in Abilene is part of the highly publicized Stargate project, which was announced last year at the White House with President Donald Trump. While the 1,000-acre site continues to be built, and several parts are up and running, Oracle and OpenAI elected not to go forward with tentative plans to lease a large expansion, the people said.

Oracle and OpenAI are using Nvidia’s AI semiconductors at the Stargate site. With Crusoe seeking a tenant, Nvidia became involved to ensure its products would still fill the expanded data center rather than that of rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc., said the people. Nvidia paid a $150 million deposit to Crusoe and began helping court Meta as a tenant for the expansion, the people said.
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Carlsmed is a commercial-stage medical technology company pioneering AI-enabled personalized spine surgery solutions with a mission to improve outcomes and decrease the cost of healthcare for spine surgery and beyond. They are focused on becoming the standard of care for spine fusion surgery. They've been using technology and AI-enabled 3D surgical planning and implants personalized for each patient.

Mike Cordonnier is the co-founder and serves as Chief Executive Officer and President of Carlsmed, he also serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors. He speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on the company's earnings and commercial & growth strategy.

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Women who go on to develop postpartum depression (PPD) may have characteristic levels of neuroactive steroids, molecules derived from the hormone progesterone, in their blood during the third trimester of pregnancy, according to a new study by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of Virginia School of Medicine. These molecules influence the brain’s stress response and emotional regulation.

Dr. Lauren Osborne is Vice Chair of Clinical Research, Department of OBGYN at Weill Cornell Medicine and she discusses how postpartum depression affects many families, how common is it, and why has it historically been underdiagnosed or overlooked.

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President Donald Trump’s war with Iran threatens to deal a severe blow to a global economy still grappling with the impact of his historic tariff hike.

For Europe, sustained higher energy prices would take the economy to the brink of recession. For the US, they would place the Federal Reserve in an impossible position — stuck between a war that pushes inflation higher and a president demanding that interest rates come down. For China, the end of discounted Iranian oil imports adds to strain from Trump’s tariffs and a real estate collapse.
In the first days of the fighting, the intensity is high and the endgame uncertain. Bloomberg Economics has modeled scenarios for what lies ahead, and what they mean for oil prices, major economies, and the future of Iran.It is, of course, possible that Washington and Tehran find an off-ramp, oil settles back at its pre-escalation average of $65 a barrel, and the global economy dodges a blow.

The latest signs, though, suggest there’s worse to come. Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery is closed. Qatar has shuttered the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas facility. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively paralyzed. Oil and gas prices have already rocketed higher. Stocks have taken a hit. Treasury yields have risen as traders curb bets on Fed cuts.

In a severe scenario, Bloomberg Economics assumes that with Trump warning of a “big wave” of attacks, Israel aiming at the fall of the Islamic Republic and Tehran betting it can outlast its adversaries, the fighting grinds on. Intensified Iranian strikes set refineries and ports ablaze or knock out pipelines, bringing energy production to a halt.
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A few weeks ago, traders on the two major prediction market platforms, Kalshi and Polymarket, were furiously debating whether Cardi B’s dancing onstage at the Super Bowl constituted a “performance.” Now the sites’ traders—and some outside observers—are up in arms over the markets that allowed users to bet on Iran’s future. Another day, another moral, legal and philosophical minefield for these businesses.

Chris Beam, Bloomberg Businessweek Contributor writes how the Iran-related controversies generated by Kalshi and Polymarket say a lot about how the two companies are positioning themselves in the sector, as well as in the debates over what role prediction markets should play in our society. Chris speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.
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Traders were on Wednesday awaiting further details of President Donald Trump’s plan to guarantee the free flow of energy shipments through the Persian Gulf, as the shipping industry warned the proposal may struggle to restore confidence after attacks effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz.

The disruption threatens to sever seaborne energy trade between some of the world’s largest producers and key consuming nations, heightening risks for global markets. Brent crude was little changed after jumping more than 10% this week, while European gas prices slipped following the biggest rally in four years.

Trump said Tuesday the US would offer insurance backstops and naval escorts for commercial vessels transiting the region, seeking to reassure markets rattled by a spiraling conflict involving Iran. Multiple attacks on vessels in recent days have choked off traffic through the narrow waterway.
The world’s largest shipping industry association said it was seeking clarification on how the US-led convoy system would operate, warning that protecting every tanker in the region would be “unrealistic.” Officials at two major commodity trading houses said they doubted the measures would materially reduce the danger of attack, even with military escorts in place.

“Nothing is sure and we need immediate clarity,” said Khalid Hashim, managing director of Precious Shipping Pcl, a Thai firm that owns bulk carriers. “Lives are at risk, cargoes are at risk, ships are at risk. We need immediate cover that protects us from all this,” he said.

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MongoDB shares tumbled 22% Tuesday after the database software company gave weaker-than-expected forecasts for full-year revenue and first-quarter adjusted earnings. The figures are reviving concern about expansion amid an intensifying product race and signaling rising competitive intensity and slower expansion of customer wallets, according to research from Bloomberg Intelligence. MongoDB's 2027 revenue guidance implies a roughly 600-bp deceleration vs. 2026, while the operating-income view trails consensus. 
 
Chirantan “CJ” Desai is the President and Chief Executive Officer of MongoDB, a position he assumed in November. He discusses the company’s latest earnings report and the impact of artificial intelligence as he looks to allay investor fears following the stock price's biggest drop since last March. CJ speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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A selloff in stocks and bonds was trimmed as assurances on American action to secure shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz amid the Iran war pared what had been an over 9% surge in oil.

Following an earlier slide in the S&P 500 that reached 2.5%, the equity benchmark dropped less than 1%. President Donald Trump said the US will escort and insure tankers and other vessels through the world’s most-critical energy chokepoint. Oil prices waned in post-settlement trading, with Brent trading near $80 a barrel.

The war in the Middle East reverberated across the region, with Israel bombarding Tehran in a fresh wave of strikes. The Islamic Republic fired missiles at Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, with Doha saying targets weren’t limited to military interests. Qatar and Iraq halted production at major energy sites.

With the conflict disrupting shipments, fuel costs have been on the rise. A sustained surge in prices for diesel — used in freight, power and heating — could add to the cost of transportation — a key inflation component. Gasoline has also surged, intensifying those risks.

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Money manager Danny Moses, immortalized in The Big Short, said last week that private credit and private equity firms’ push into retail products reminds him of the years preceding the subprime mortgage crisis. The comments, made during a panel at the iConnections Global Alts conference in Miami Beach, Florida, came as business development companies — funds that pool direct loans — face a surge in redemptions amid growing concerns over lending standards. Private capital firms have begun to more aggressively court individual investors in recent years, fueling worries that a wave of withdrawals from mom-and-pop savers could strain a market built on hard-to-sell assets.

Moses, the Founder of Moses Ventures, LLC, expands on his credit market commentary and delves into the business of prediction markets, while also reacting to expansive remarks from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon about the investing environment amid renewed military conflict in the Middle East. Danny speaks with Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec and Bloomberg News Equities Reporter Alexandra Semenova on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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The people, companies and trends shaping the global economy.
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Oil surged as the Iran war threatened to snarl shipping lanes, stoking inflation fears that pummeled bonds amid diminishing odds for a rate cut. The dollar rose. Stocks erased losses.
Also weighing on Treasuries were figures showing manufacturing expanded, with input prices jumping. Ten-year yields headed toward their biggest advance since April. The S&P 500 was little changed after a slide that earlier topped 1%. Energy and defense shares gained. Several tech firms with solid balance sheets rallied. Airlines sank. Gold topped $5,300.

The near halt to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and disruption at a big refinery in Saudi Arabia underscored the threat to oil supplies. West Texas Intermediate jumped 6.3% to settle at $71.23. European natural gas prices soared as Qatar shut the world’s largest LNG export plant.

As US-Israeli strikes on Iran reverberated across the Middle East, President Donald Trump called on the nation’s leaders to capitulate, while the Islamic Republic’s security chief ruled out negotiations. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected the idea of an “endless” war.

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Vir Biotechnology Vir is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on powering the immune system to transform lives by discovering and developing medicines for serious infectious diseases and cancer. The company on Monday announced new data from the ongoing Phase 1 clinical trial of VIR-5500, a prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeting, PRO-XTEN dual-masked T-cell engager (TCE) being evaluated in patients with advanced metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) who have progressed after multiple lines of therapy. These data suggest that VIR-5500 monotherapy is well tolerated and exhibits promising anti-tumor activity.

Marianne De Backer, Ph.D., the CEO at Vir Bio, discusses the progress being made with the firm's leading treatments, the runup in its share price thus far in 2026, and why partnerships are key to advancing Vir's impact. Dr. De Backer speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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'Bloomberg This Weekend' features unique conversations on business, news, lifestyle and culture. Join David Gura, Christina Ruffini and Lisa Mateo Saturdays and Sundays for discussions with business leaders, lawmakers and cultural icons.  

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The US and Israel began striking targets across Iran, with President Donald Trump urging Iranians to overthrow the government in a conflict that threatens to spiral across the oil-rich Middle East.   

“The hour for your freedom is at hand,” Trump said, addressing Iranians in a video posted on Truth Social on Saturday. “When we’re finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”   

The military campaign could be a defining moment for Trump, risking a drawn-out regional war that leads to a surge in energy prices and American casualties ahead of mid-term elections this year. Iran quickly responded by firing missiles on Israel and US bases around the region, and countries in the Persian Gulf closed their airspace.  

Israel’s military said the campaign would target “dozens of military targets,” and Iran media reported strikes on defensive and civilian sites, including more than 50 people dead in a strike on a school in Hormozgan, in the south of the country. Several large explosions were reported in the capital, Tehran.   
Bloomberg's David Gura and Christina Ruffini lead our team coverage in this instant reaction podcast.

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Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show "Bloomberg Businessweek Daily."

Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec

Hear the show live at 2PM ET on WBBR 1130 AM New York, Bloomberg 92.9 FM Boston, WDCH 99.1 FM in Washington D.C. Metro, Sirius/XM channel 121, on the Bloomberg Business App, Radio.com, the iHeartRadio app and at Bloomberg.com/audio.

You can also watch Bloomberg Businessweek on YouTube - just search for Bloomberg Global News.

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President Donald Trump directed US government agencies to stop using Anthropic PBC’s products, capping a feud between the artificial intelligence giant and the Pentagon over safeguards on its technology.

Trump said Friday that there would be a six-month “phase out period” for agencies including the Defense Department that are using Anthropic’s products.
“The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution,” the president posted on social media. “Therefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology.”
Spokespeople for Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Hegseth had given Anthropic until 5 p.m. on Friday to allow the Pentagon to use the Claude chatbot for any means necessary, within legal limits. The company had insisted that Claude not be used for mass surveillance against Americans or in fully autonomous weapons operations.

Trump’s decision will send a shockwave through Silicon Valley, where tech firms have invested billions of dollars on artificial intelligence and are weighing how best to handle federal government contracting. The move takes aim at a company that’s leading development of AI, a centerpiece of Trump’s economic agenda.

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February is American Heart Month, known as a critical time for bringing increased attention to cardiovascular health and the prevention of heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the US. Women are particularly vulnerable to cardiac health threats spanning biological, clinical and healthcare system factors that contribute to underdiagnosis, delayed treatment, and worse outcomes compared to men.

Dr. Joy Gelbman, Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine as well as a board-certified cardiologist, is well-versed in the unique challenges facing women when it comes to their cardiac health. She breaks down specific sex-specific risk factors, differing disease presentation and pathophysiology, as well as the experience disparities in treatments and outcomes. Dr. Gelbman speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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Jack Dorsey’s Block is cutting 4,000 employees, reducing its workforce by nearly half as the financial technology firm places a bet on artificial intelligence changing the future of labor productivity.

Block has been restructuring its business model and staffing since 2024 as the company’s stock has lagged. At the same time, the company has invested heavily in artificial intelligence tools to run more efficiently, including building its own tool called Goose.
The reduction in force, which was announced in a shareholder letter on Thursday, comes after rolling job eliminations that have often been tied to annual performance reviews.
The move by Block is the latest indication of the havoc that new AI tools are wreaking on the economy and financial markets.

In the shareholder letter, the company highlighted strong financial performance over 2025 including gross profit growth that more than doubled from the first quarter to the fourth quarter.

Dorsey, the company’s co-founder, touted how the company has reignited growth of users of its peer-to-peer payments app Cash App, scaled its lending products and accelerated Square gross payment volume. Block reported gross profit of $10.36 billion in 2025, up 17% year-over-year.

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Shares of MercadoLibre fell after fourth-quarter net income missed analysts’ estimates as the company continued to invest heavily in its main business lines. MercadoLibre posted $559 million in net income, below the average forecast for $596 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. However, the company posted a 45% year-on-year increase in net revenue to $8.8 billion, beating consensus analyst estimates of $8.5 billion, as customers took advantage of free shipping perks in Brazil and piled into MercadoLibre’s credit offerings. That marks its 28th consecutive quarter of annual growth above 30%.

Martin de los Santos, the CFO of South America's largest company, discusses quarterly earnings and the e-commerce giant's continued efforts to scale its fintech platform, Mercado Pago. Martin speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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Nvidia Corp., the world’s most valuable company, gave another bullish quarterly revenue forecast, signaling that the massive build-out of AI computing remains on track.
Fiscal first-quarter sales will be about $78 billion, the chipmaker said in a statement Wednesday. That compares with an average Wall Street estimate of $72.8 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Our customers are racing to invest in AI compute — the factories powering the AI industrial revolution and their future growth,” Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said in the statement.
The outlook helped soothe concerns about a bubble in AI investments. Huang has repeatedly downplayed fears that the run-up in spending on artificial intelligence hardware isn’t sustainable. He argues that it will take years to replace the world’s installed base of older computers with machines that offer a leap forward in productivity.
But some investors had grown weary of that optimism and traded out of stocks like Nvidia. Wednesday’s report provides some evidence that near-term worries may be overblown.

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The Jel Sert Company is a family-owned business that has been at the forefront of innovation in the food and beverage industry since 1926. Jel Sert's products include dessert mixes, drink mixes, and freezer bars, and are made exclusively in West Chicago, Illinois.

Ken Wegner is President of The Jel Sert Company. The grandson of Jel Sert founders Charles and Lillian Wegner, Ken grew up in the business and has worked at the company since 1985, helping steward beloved brands while expanding Jel Sert’s community impact, and growing its workforce to more than 1,400 employees. He discusses the firm's recent expansion within West Chicago, as well as how real-time searches and social data from platforms like TikTok are guiding new flavor development and brand partnerships for Jel Sert. Ken speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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Activist investor Boaz Weinstein is stepping up his warnings on private credit, saying the turmoil surrounding Blue Owl Capital’s funds is exposing deeper cracks in the $1.8 trillion industry.
“All you need is the snowball to start going down the hill and it started. Blue Owl is right in the middle of that,” the Saba Capital Management founder said Tuesday at the iConnections Global Alts conference in Miami Beach, Florida. “I think we are in the super-early innings of the wheels coming off the car.” The comment was the latest salvo by Weinstein against the private credit industry, which is reeling from worries about overspending on artificial intelligence and lending standards after Blue Owl restricted withdrawals from one of its funds.

Saba Capital, alongside Cox Capital Partners, has announced cash tenders for stakes in three funds managed by Blue Owl Capital at steep discounts to their stated value, after the alternative investment firm restricted redemptions in one vehicle and began selling loans to raise cash for investors.

The offer price is expected to be 20%-35% below net asset value and aims to give a liquidity solution to retail investors wanting to exit positions that have been harder to redeem as withdrawals surged across the sector.

During the panel, Weinstein warned about market dislocations, where some credit assets are currently trading at historic highs while related equity and fund structures are at massive discounts. He added that he is looking to launch a fund to capitalize on an expected wave of opportunities, particularly around the Blue Owl situation and similar semi-liquid products facing redemption pressures.
Saba and Cox sent notices to buy Blue Owl Capital Corporation II shares on Feb. 17. They plan to make similar offers for Blue Owl Technology Income Corp. and Blue Owl Credit Income Corp., which are also business development companies. Blue Owl’s shares have plunged around 50% in the past year, even as the firm’s revenue continued to climb in that period.

Others have sounded warnings as well in recent days. JPMorgan Chase and Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon on Monday drew parallels between the present day and the era leading up to the 2008 global financial crises, when the scramble to make loans ended disastrously.

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Tom Freston is a cofounder of MTV and the former CEO of Viacom, where he oversaw Paramount Pictures. After launching a successful clothing export company out of Afghanistan and India, Freston transitioned into the media landscape, helping found MTV and bringing it to international fame in more than 150 countries. Before his Viacom roles, he ran MTV Networks for seventeen years, overseeing Nickelodeon, VH1, Comedy Central, and other legendary networks.

In addition to currently serving as the Principal of consulting and investment firm Firefly3, Freston also recently released his memoir, “Unplugged Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu,” which details some of his more unique experiences as he rose through the ranks of the entertainment industry. Tom discusses his unparalleled career as well as some of the pressing issues in the media business today, including the ongoing battle between Netflix and Paramount Skydance over control of Warner Bros. Discovery. Tom speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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A European Union assessment found that President Donald Trump’s new tariff policy will increase levies on some of the bloc’s exports, including cheese and some agricultural products, above the level permitted in their trade agreement.

After the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s use of an emergency-powers law to impose his so-called reciprocal tariffs around the world, he announced a new 10% global levy, which he then threatened to increase to 15%.

The European Commission, which handles trade matters for the bloc, told lawmakers Monday that the new global tariff will be added to levies that are already in place, according to Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee. The new cumulative rate means some goods would be above the 15% ceiling the EU and US agreed to in their trade deal.
Under Trump’s new tariff program, some products including butter, plastics, textiles and chemicals would have levies above that 15% ceiling, according to people familiar with the commission’s assessment. The new global tariffs can stay in place for as many as 150 days.Commission spokesman Olof Gill declined to comment on the assessment.

The EU-US trade deal — struck last summer between Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — would impose a 15% tariff rate on most EU exports to the US while removing tariffs on many American goods heading into the bloc. The US would also continue to impose a 50% tariff on European steel and aluminum imports.

The bloc agreed to the lopsided deal in the hopes of avoiding a full-blown trade war with Washington and retaining US security backing, particularly with regards to Ukraine. European Parliament suspended legislative work on approving the EU-US accord on Monday, requesting clarity on Trump’s new trade policy.

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Gen Alpha, the cohort born from 2010 to 2024, has been subject to harsh critiques, including being addicted to phones, lacking self-discipline and social skills, and being unable to read or spell. Despite these criticisms, Gen Alphas have strengths such as teamwork, empathy, honesty, and creativity, and are highly tuned into world events and global issues due to their access to global platforms and networks.

Bloomberg Businessweek Contributing Writer Stacey Vanek Smith discusses how Gen Alphas are already showing significant spending power and influence over adult purchasing decisions, with many having a strong sense of self-expression and a desire for luxury products, and are expected to play a major role in shaping the future of work and technology.

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Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show “Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.” 
Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec Hear the show live at 2PM ET on WBBR 1130 AM New York, Bloomberg 92.9 FM Boston, WDCH 99.1 FM in Washington D.C. Metro, Sirius/XM channel 121, on the Bloomberg Business App, Radio.com, the iHeartRadio app and at Bloomberg.com/audio. 
You can also watch Bloomberg Businessweek on YouTube - just search for Bloomberg Global News. Like us at Bloomberg Radio on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @carolmassar @timsteno and @BW

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The people, companies and trends shaping the global economy.

Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.

The US Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, undercutting his signature economic policy and delivering his biggest legal defeat since he returned to the White House.
Voting 6-3, the court said Trump exceeded his authority by invoking a federal emergency-powers law to impose his “reciprocal” tariffs across the globe as well as targeted import taxes the administration says address fentanyl trafficking.

The justices didn’t address the extent to which importers are entitled to refunds, leaving it to a lower court to sort out those issues. If fully allowed, refunds could total as much as $170 billion — more than half the total revenue Trump’s tariffs have brought in.

Trump said at a press conference that he will reimpose some tariffs using alternative legal tools. The fall-back options tend to be either more cumbersome or more limited than the wide-ranging powers Trump asserted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Stocks rose on news of the decision given investors previously fretted tariffs would hurt the outlook for economic growth and company earnings. Treasuries extended declines with yields rising broadly and the rate on the benchmark 10-year note climbing to 4.10% as investors priced in the likelihood of lower tax revenues. A Bloomberg gauge of the dollar fell as much as 0.2% before erasing the drop.

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For a few brief, shining moments, the dream of Milton Friedman must have seemed closer to reality in corporate America than ever before. Donald Trump had been reelected president, and the tax cuts and regulatory loosening he’d promised were on the horizon. Whatever leverage ordinary workers had managed to scrape together in the years following the Covid-19 pandemic had mostly been quashed, and surely the incoming administration would take care of what remained. Gone, too, were the days when executives would have to evince corporate disapproval of racism or sexism or homophobia if they didn’t feel like it, as many of them had been goaded into doing during #MeToo or the Black Lives Matter movement. They could get out of talking about politics—which is not quite the same as getting out of politics, period—and get back to maximizing shareholder value however they pleased..

Bloomberg Businessweek Senior Reporter Amanda Mull discusses how corporations have largely avoided criticizing Trump, with some leaders only speaking out after extreme circumstances, such as the killing of a Minnesota man by CBP agents, and even then their statements have been muted and avoided direct condemnation.

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The people, companies and trends shaping the global economy.

Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.

At least one structured note tied to Blue Owl Capital Inc. is being quoted at just 47 cents on the dollar after the asset manager restricted withdrawals from one of its retail-focused private funds.
The security, which was issued by a subsidiary of Citigroup Inc., is due later this year. Another 2028 note that was offered by a unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co. is quoted at about 68 cents, while a Bank of Nova Scotia instrument partly tied to Blue Owl was at 87 cents, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Structured notes are bonds with embedded derivatives, giving holders exposure to a number of assets, from stock prices to currencies and interest rates. There’s generally no secondary market for those bonds, with prices only coming from the banks that arranged them.

Blue Owl’s stock fell as much as 9.4% in New York on Thursday. The notes were already quoted below face value prior to the announcement about the withdrawal restrictions.The depressed prices underscore the pressure on Blue Owl, whose stock has already fallen by about a quarter this year.

The plan to limit withdrawals signaled a reversal from a previous arrangement to resume redemptions this quarter.

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Jeff Vaughn, a former CBS anchor, says a 2022 billboard convinced him that being White and male was becoming a liability, and he sued CBS in 2024 after being fired in 2023. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is urging White men to come forward with complaints about their treatment by employers looking to diversify their workforces, with EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas saying that anti-discrimination laws apply equally to everyone.
Jeff Green, Bloomberg News Managing Diversity Reporter, writes how white men who sue their employers over perceived discrimination may face career damage, with experts saying that bringing a lawsuit can make it difficult to find a new job, as potential employers can discover the lawsuit with a basic Google search.

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