Author: openjargon

Gen Z wants to talk about mental health. And these days, they want to talk about it at the office.

In a 2023 survey of nearly 3,000 people, Gen Z was almost twice as likely as other generations to say they struggled with their mental health. And nearly half said they're fine talking about it at work — 20% more than other generations. Anecdotally, managers have said their youngest employees confront anxiety and have no qualms about openly discussing it.

This comfort with vulnerability shouldn't be a surprise. Gen Zers grew up amid a movement to destigmatize mental illness and encourage people to get treatment. They witnessed suicide rates tick up, especially among their peers. They watched celebrities like Selena Gomez, Simone Biles, and Demi Lovato speak out about once taboo subjects such as bipolar disorder, depression, and ADHD. And over the past few years, they've watched rates of depression and anxiety climb through the roof. They've felt increasingly empowered to be open about their struggles, support their coworkers, and lobby management for better benefits.

In a recent survey of US businesses conducted by the consultancy group Mercer and published by the US Chamber of Commerce, companies reported an overwhelming increase in demand for mental-health care over the past few years. In response, 94% of companies employing more than 500 people have added mental-health benefits — from expanded access to therapy to in-office programs for mental-health training. Across corporate America, talking about mental health is all the rage.

There's just one problem. While destigmatizing mental illness is important, a workplace overly focused on mental health isn't always a recipe for better mental-health outcomes. Recent articles about "therapy speak" and being "overtherapized" point to a growing sense that all the mental-health talk might be a bit much. In fact, researchers studying the issue think that talking about your psychological struggles too much can make your problems worse.

A healthy work environment is one where people feel supported and encouraged to do meaningful work — not one that fixates on their mental health.

Americans are overwhelmingly worried about a mental-health crisis. In a 2022 poll of American adults conducted by the American Psychiatric Association, 79% said they viewed mental health as a public-health emergency in the US. When asked in a December KFF poll about crucial issues for the 2024 presidential candidates to discuss, far more people said access to mental-health care was most important compared with those who listed immigration, gun violence, abortion, or the climate crisis as the top issue.

The concern is well placed. Gallup found that between 2015 and 2023, the share of Americans who said they had been diagnosed with depression increased from about 20% to almost 30%. In just two decades, the number of Americans who received mental-health treatment shot up from 27 million in 2002 to nearly 56 million in 2022. Half of US physicians in a CVS Health/Harris Poll survey last year reported that their patients' mental health was declining.

Among young people, the problem is worse: A 2022 KFF/CNN survey found that adults under 30 were far more likely than those in older age groups to report that they often or always felt depressed or anxious. In a recent survey from the Archbridge Institute's Human Flourishing Lab, where I serve as the director, only 64% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 said their mental health was good — less than any other age group and a stark contrast from the roughly 90% of people over 45 who said the same.

These trends have important implications for the workplace. Poor mental health reduces labor-force participation, work engagement, and job performance, costing the economy an estimated $50 billion in lost productivity each year. And companies are noticing the impact: In a 2023 survey of 152 large American employers, 77% of companies reported an increase in mental-health concerns among their employees.

Some psychologists believe that efforts to increase public awareness of mental-health problems in the Western world have actually made the problem worse.

To address this problem, human-resources departments have flooded the workplace with resources and programs: everything from online resources through partnerships with wellness and therapy apps like Calm and BetterHelp to in-house resources such as office peer support groups, mental-health seminars, and spaces specifically for meditation and yoga. Many companies are also facing a push for cultural change. In a recent survey by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, three-quarters of workers polled said it was appropriate to discuss mental health at work, and even more said that supervisors and senior leadership were responsible for helping employees feel comfortable discussing their mental health.

On TikTok, people are recording their on-the-job breakdowns. Across social media, Gen Zers swap tips on avoiding toxic workplaces. And in work-based TV shows like "Severance," "Industry," and "The Bear," mental health is front and center. Everyone seems to agree that companies need to do something.

Breaking through the mental-health stigma is important: Many people struggling with depression or anxiety do not seek help because of their fear that it could harm their reputation, social relationships, and professional aspirations. In that sense, it's a good thing when workplaces become supportive environments where colleagues and supervisors view mental-health issues humanely.

But there's a limit. Too much mental-health talk can be counterproductive. Take concept creep, for example — the idea that the meanings of things like abuse, trauma, anxiety, and depression have expanded over time. Over the years, negative emotional experiences that were once considered a normal part of life have increasingly been viewed as signs of psychological disorders. Trauma, for example, once referred to the severe psychological distress that came from rare, life-threatening experiences. Now, it's used to describe less-severe distress caused by a wider variety of adverse events, such as exposure to offensive speech or violent media.

Some psychologists believe that efforts to increase public awareness of mental-health problems in the Western world have actually made the problem worse — they have encouraged people to fixate on negative psychological experiences and interpret normal levels of emotional discomfort as abnormal. This misinterpretation can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, they argue, whereby people begin to think and behave as if they truly have a mental disorder, ultimately increasing their risk of developing one.

Well-intentioned efforts to get people to think and talk more about mental health may inadvertently promote excessive dwelling on negative emotions and personal insecurities — known in psychology as rumination — which can exacerbate psychological distress. Research indicates that rumination can make depression and anxiety disorders worse, which is why helping other people is an especially effective way to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression — it takes people's minds off their own problems.

The more people view their lives — and work — as meaningful, the lower their risk for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide is.

So when employers encourage workers to spend time focused on their mental states with "emotional check-ins" or by including more mental-health language in office communications, they may well push staff to ruminate on their problems — and make them worse. And while workplace leaders can lend a sympathetic ear, most are not trained psychologists or psychiatrists and thus lack the expertise required to properly identify and address mental illness.

There's also a professional risk. Sharing your personal health information with colleagues and supervisors can blur professional boundaries and result in discrimination due to an altered perception of your competence that could affect your career advancement. When managers share too much about their psychological struggles, researchers have found, it can undermine how their employees see them.

In other words, the office isn't equipped to treat mental-health issues — but it can help in other ways.

What does have a tangible impact on people's well-being at work is whether they find their work meaningful. The more people view their lives — and work — as meaningful, the lower their risk for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide is. And when people experience mental-health problems, the things in life they find meaningful can play an important role in their recovery. At work, finding meaning also improves the overall organization. Workers are more likely to report high levels of job satisfaction and low intentions of quitting if they view their work as meaningful.

I've spent two decades of my career as an existential psychologist studying the need for meaning in life. The most important lesson employers can learn is that meaning is about social significance. People feel the most meaningful when they believe that they're making important contributions to the lives of others. Research has found that people are more likely to derive meaning from their work when they focus on how it serves a greater good, rather than how it advances their career. Other research has found that work feels the most meaningful when workers have a strong sense of autonomy at work and believe their efforts significantly and positively influence the lives of others.

Prioritizing positive mental health in the workplace is crucial — most of us spend the majority of our time on the job, after all. But the solution, ultimately, isn't as straightforward as raising awareness and fostering open conversations. Instead, employers should ensure their staff have access to mental-health care while building a positive culture that promotes meaningful work.

Clay Routledge is vice president of research and director of the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute.

• PwC offered UK buyout packages and directed staff on how to communicate their exits.
• The buyout program was not officially communicated firm-wide and it came with messaging rules.
• The buyout comes amid slowing client work, with PwC and other firms cutting jobs and delaying hires' starts.

After accounting giant PwC offered UK buyout packages in recent weeks, staff were directed on exactly how they should communicate their exits, the Financial Times reported.

The FT saw a note sent to employees that told them they could not talk about the circumstances of their departure. PwC said it could review messages before they were sent out to "a defined group" and that the note could not be "derogatory."

While PwC told employees their goodbye messages could be personalized, the firm offered the following wording, writing, "The content of your comms should follow this approach:"

"Following recent discussions with my [relationship leader], I have taken the decision to leave PwC. It hasn't been an easy decision for me to reach but now that I have, I am excited about what the future holds for me and the new opportunities on the horizon. I have really enjoyed my time at PwC and the opportunity to work with such talented colleagues.'"

PwC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside business hours.

While multiple UK offices were offered the buyout, the program was not officially communicated across the firm. It was not immediately clear how many people accepted buyouts across the UK offices.

The Big Four firms — EY, Deloitte, PWC, and KPMG — have cut hundreds of jobs in the past year as slowing client work forces professional services to rethink their staffing needs.

In November, the FT reported that PwC planned to ax up to 600 jobs in the UK and McKinsey said last year it would slash 1,400 jobs globally.

Accenture offered new hires out of college up to $25,000 to push their start dates back. Other consultancies have pushed entry-level start dates back eight to 11 months, Beth Hendler-Grunt, the president of Next Great Step, a career-counseling service for college graduates, told BI earlier this month.

• Russia's economy is facing challenges despite resilience and high liquidity, says Rosneft's CEO.
• He said the central bank's 16% interest rate to curb inflation hampers borrowing and investment.
• Experts warn Russia's wartime-driven economy is overheated, risking sustainable development.

Russia's wartime economy appears to be humming along over two years into its war with Ukraine. But doing business is hard, according to the boss of a Russian oil giant.

"Despite a record 103 trillion ruble of liquidity within the perimeter of the Russian banking system, the industry is unable to raise financing," said Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft — Russia's largest oil producer — at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Saturday. That's about $1.2 billion of liquidity.

The country's top central banker, Elvira Nabiullina, has hiked interest rates up to 16% over the last year to tame inflation.

The high rates discourage borrowing and investment, "which are necessary for sustainable development," said Sechin.

It wasn't the first time Sechin griped about high interest rates.

Last month, after Rosneft's first-quarter results, Sechin said that "market conditions in Russia have already resulted in a significant incremental cost of debt."

"The Company's average quarterly debt service cost reached its maximum in the 21st century," Sechin added.

On Friday, Russia's central bank kept its key interest rate at 16% for the fourth straight month. But the bank said in a statement that it "holds open the prospect of increasing the key rate at its upcoming meeting" on July 26 should high inflation continue.

Russia's inflation rate stood at 8.17% from May 28 to June 3 — up from 8.07% a week earlier. This is double the central bank's 4% inflation target.

Russia's overheated economy masks risks

Sechin's comments highlight the challenges in Russia's sanctions-hit economy, which has appeared resilient despite the Ukraine war.

Russia posted 3.6% GDP growth last year and unemployment rate hit a record low 2.6% in April. Meanwhile, real wages jumped nearly 13% in March from a year ago due to an ongoing labor crunch.

It's so hot that Herman Gref, the CEO of Sberbank — Russia's largest bank by asset value — said last week the country's economy is "definitely and strongly overheated." Nabiullina herself warned in December the country's economy was at risk of overheating.

Reports from Russia suggest the country's economy is primarily driven by wartime activities that generate demand for military goods and services, subsidies that steady the economy, and sharp policy-making.

But rosy GDP figures alone are not a good measure of economic performance during wartime. The main production — weapons and munitions — doesn't better the quality of life for Russians or contribute to future economic growth, Sergei Guriev, a former chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, said in January.

• In 2020, I quit my career in accounting and decided to focus on my real dream: writing.
• I planned on living off my life savings, but I lost it all in Lebanon's financial crisis.
• I'm trying to get back to work, but I'm struggling, so I started freelancing.

The year 2020 was supposed to be when I could finally take it easy and focus on myself. Years of odd jobs — which I started in my teens — had taken their toll on my health. I decided to leave my career in accounting behind and finally take a crack at my lifelong dream of being a writer.

By the time I was 23, I had $20,000 saved — thanks to tutoring and accounting — so I knew I could take some time to chase my dreams in Lebanon, where my family is from. I wasn't too concerned about my finances because my mother tucked away my substantial earnings in a local bank in Lebanon. We lived off the interest of our combined life savings.

But Lebanon's banking system collapsed — the World Bank called it a Ponzi scheme — and the country entered a financial crisis. As soon as the headlines broke, access to our accounts was restricted. It became a mess of confusion. We only knew that the Lebanese pound was in freefall, and businesses were closing left and right.

My savings were lost forever — just as I was making headway as a writer.

I didn't have a reentry plan

In late 2020, it became clear that our money was just digits on a screen, and the Lebanese government didn't have a plan to deal with the crisis. I knew I had to return to work but didn't know how. I hadn't planned for this.

Figuring out how to return to the workforce was the real struggle. Call it youthful naivety, but I didn't have a reentry plan in case I needed to return to work. I was prepared to do office work, but the job market in Lebanon was dead. I had to expand my job search to the US; thankfully, I'm also an American citizen.

But I struggled to find a job Stateside, too. My main issue was that I had a few gap years in my work history because of the break I took. I had to touch up my résumé so that hobbies, side projects, and activities were now valuable experiences to an employer, but it didn't help much.

The Lebanese financial crisis continued long after the COVID-19 pandemic. The only way to make ends meet was to crawl into the gig economy.

I'm now burning myself out

I don't have enough cash on hand to relocate to the States, so I have to subsist on odd jobs mixed with commissions from magazines, newspapers, and journals. But it's been a nightmare.

Working freelance is just a relentless hamster wheel. Not knowing where and when I'll find my next gig is demoralizing. I have to constantly search for more opportunities while trying to finish what I already have on my plate as fast as possible.

Being my own boss is also difficult. You can't help but be tough on yourself for fear of losing productivity. Initially, I figured it would be a temporary arrangement until I could use my freelance work as a launchpad for better things, but career development in freelancing is relatively linear compared to the old-fashioned corporate ladder.

Burnout has been a problem I've had to power through so many times that the long-term psychological effects have been debilitating. I must push myself to keep up, but I can only do it for so long.

Since losing my savings, I've been freelancing for five years. I know I can't carry on like this forever, but I have an exit plan in place this time. I'm pursuing a doctorate to access stable work outside a corporate setting. I still have years ahead of me and have all but given up hopes of trying to make it as a writer, considering how slim the opportunities are now compared to only a couple of years ago.

Still, I hold on to the hope that through the same hard work and perseverance that allowed me to shore up my savings in the first place, I can find my way back to financial stability.

• Bailey Varness is a voice-over actor who started fixing projects originally done by AI in 2021.
• She says AI voices are prone to mispronouncing, unable to change tone, and often stolen.
• The work is so time-consuming that if it continues, she plans to triple her rate of $500 an hour.

I've been working in the voice-over and marketing industry for 15 years. I started my career as an audiobook narrator and then moved into commercials. I've done small pieces for businesses just starting out and national campaigns for Fortune 500 companies.

After working on thousands of projects, I understand how companies can be tempted to use AI voices for their commercials and content. It seems like a solution to save both time and money. Unfortunately, in most cases, the opposite is true.

In July 2021, I received my first request to fix a voice-over project where a company tried to use AI, but it didn't sound right. It's become a regular part of my work, and I receive up to four requests a month. Redoing what an AI voice has failed to do is very time-consuming.

I charge SAG-AFTRA union rates or above for my work

Depending on where a commercial voice-over will be used and the length of the piece, I can earn up to $1,500 for a project, which breaks down to roughly $500 per hour.

If I keep getting projects where I have to redo the sloppy job of an AI voice, I will triple my voice-over rates. It's way more time and effort than my traditional voice-over projects.

It took me about three years and $10,000 in training to perfect my commercial voice, and the styles of commercial reads change every few years. There's a nuance to voice-over performances. AI voices can't be directed to keep up with it.

Fixing an AI ad is like working backward

Usually, when creating a commercial, marketing teams record the voice-over first and then add the video to match. With AI voices, a video has already been produced, so I have to match the speed that AI created and still make it sound good.

I've done a lot of political ads, and the client always wants to fit as many accomplishments as possible about their candidate into the allotted 30 seconds. It's a lot of work to ensure I can say everything on time.

I've learned how to adjust my reading speed and tone to fit the number of words needed into 30 seconds. AI can't vary its speed or sound natural if you try to speed it up to fit. An AI voice-over can easily become an unsalvagable mess.

AI voices end up costing more

AI makes a lot of common mistakes. There's usually a word or two that just isn't right — brand names and names of people are often pronounced incorrectly.

Another common AI mistake is not knowing what to emphasize. AI voices can give a casual, boring read that most marketers think will be fine, but they can't change tone or enthusiasm.

As a voice actor, I can't fix the one word AI said wrong. The voices won't match. The whole thing must be thrown out and started again. When your goal was to save time and money, you lose in both areas.

Beware the legal ramifications of using AI voices

There's also a good chance that if you're using an AI voice, it's been stolen. AI voice data is trained on many voices who never gave permission.

Groups like NAVA (The National Association of Voice Actors) are working to include a clause in voice-over contracts that says that you cannot use any recordings created to be sold for AI training data, but that's not stopping some tech companies from using whatever they can find.

While there's no precedent for unauthorized AI voice usage, Bette Midler and Tom Waits have both received $400,000 and over $2M, respectively, for sing-alike performances of their voices in commercials. Corporations should avoid using AI voiceovers if they want to ensure the voices they use will not get them into legal trouble down the road.

I started a company to help

I started a company this year called Brand Voice Consulting that focuses on the many aspects of marketing, including voice-over, because companies often don't realize what an important part of their campaign it really is. You want your brand to come across as authentic, and voice-over is a part of being able to do that.

I don't think correcting AI voice-overs will be the biggest part of my work in the future. I expect companies to learn the problems pretty quickly after trying AI voice-overs.

Be careful if you think AI is the miracle to marketing you were hoping for because you may be the next victim to have to hire me to fix your AI voice-over nightmare.

Bailey Varness is a marketing consultant, brand voice strategist, digital marketing speaker, and voice expert.

• Apple's much-anticipated WWDC 2024 keynote kicks off at 1 p.m. ET.
• Tim Cook is set to take the stage and reveal Apple's generative AI strategy.
• Apple has reportedly struck a deal with OpenAI to help power some of the AI features.

Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference keynote on Monday is expected to herald some major announcements from the tech titan.

This year's WWDC has been highly anticipated by analysts, investors, and beyond, who all want to know what CEO Tim Cook will reveal about Apple's generative artificial intelligence efforts. Major updates to iOS will also reportedly be announced from 1 p.m. ET.

An AI announcement from Apple can't come soon enough, analysts have said.

"Apple doesn't have to be first, but it can't be on the outside looking in when it comes to AI," Wedbush Securities managing director Dan Ives previously told Business Insider.

Although neither company has officially announced the deal, Bloomberg reported that Apple and OpenAI will likely partner to bring an AI chatbot to iPhones. OpenAI launched the new GPT-4o in May.

Other changes Apple is expected to unveil include updated Mac, iPad, and Vision Pro operating systems, AI-generated emojis, and a complete overhaul of Siri. By bringing the power of AI to Siri, the virtual assistant could integrate with Apple apps to perform a wider range of tasks than it's been capable of.

Apple is reportedly expected to reveal AI integrations throughout iOS 18 that focus on making everyday tasks on your iPhone easier, such as summarizing and responding to emails and recapping articles.

And while no new hardware is expected to be announced this year — last year, they introduced the Vision Pro — all eyes are on Apple to finally set the stage for an "AI iPhone" expected to be revealed later this year.

WWDC is Apple’s biggest conference

The Worldwide Developers Conference is held by Apple every year. It starts with a keynote speech from CEO Tim Cook that's available to watch on apple.com.

WWDC is being held at Apple Park, its headquarters in Cupertino, California. It's colloquially called "the ring" or "the spaceship" because its giant circular design resembles a flying saucer.

Developers will attend sessions at conference, which concludes on Friday.

Analysts think WWDC 2024 will “kick off an AI-driven accelerated growth cycle on the iPhone and Services”

Dan Ives said in an analyst note on Sunday that the AI-infused products and services "will be the narrative of the Apple story for the coming years."

Wedbush analysts predict a formal announcement of Apple's rumored partnership with OpenAI, which they think is a chatbot based on Apple LLMs and that an AI App Store will be unveiled. They also think an AI-powered iPhone 16 launch could be on the cards too.

Apple revealed its Vision ‘Vision Pro' headset at last year’s WWDC

Tim Cook unveiled Apple's first mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, during the company's annual keynote at WWDC 2023. It was the first major product announcement since the Apple Watch in 2014.

• A 2005 deal between Apple and Google changed the way Americans use the internet.
• Apple may soon reveal a new arrangement that could do the same for the AI era.
• Tim Cook is expected to announce a partnership with OpenAI at WWDC to bring ChatGPT to iPhones.

When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone in 2007, it was a landmark moment in Apple's history that involved the CEO of another Silicon Valley company: Google.

Eric Schmidt, Google's leader at the time, joined Jobs onstage at the Macworld conference as a symbol of the growing bond between their companies. In 2005, Apple and Google had struck a deal to make Mountain View's search engine the default option on the Mac's Safari browser.

The iPhone put Google front and center as the core search tool on the device Apple was betting its future on. It's a tie-up that has arguably determined who's dominated America's internet ever since.

As iPhones grew in popularity across the US, Google's reach spread too, giving an already dominant search engine more exposure.

The deal is now at the heart of a US antitrust lawsuit filed against Google in 2020, but it's shaped how Americans experienced the internet and has been extremely lucrative for Apple: Google paid $20 billion in 2022 to maintain the deal.

Now, Apple is preparing to reveal its plans to dominate the internet again — with the help of another Silicon Valley company.

Apple's plan to dominate the internet, again

When CEO Tim Cook kicks off Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, he's expected to unveil a new vision of artificial intelligence by announcing a partnership with OpenAI.

Bloomberg reported last week that Apple is all but set to announce that the ChatGPT maker's technology will be integrated into the iPhone operating system.

For Apple, the partnership is a bold attempt to bring generative-AI features to its devices after months of questions from investors, developers, and others about its plans to get in on Silicon Valley's most-talked-about technology.

Though Apple typically keeps its plans secret, there's been a growing sense that the company was falling behind on AI. Rivals like Google and Meta have charged ahead with their own AI models, while Microsoft partnered with OpenAI as early as 2019.

But by bringing an incumbent AI player like OpenAI into its mix, Apple hopes it can shape a new internet experience for iPhone users in the AI era.

In a research note, Wedbush analysts wrote that this year's WWDC could be "the most important event for Apple in over a decade as the pressure to bring a generative AI stack of technology for developers and consumers" grows.

For OpenAI, the deal would give it access to one of the most powerful distribution systems in the world, as there are more than a billion active iPhone users.

Time will tell if the deal is as fruitful as Apple's search-engine agreement with Google. Though OpenAI has emerged as the face of the generative-AI boom thanks to the early-mover advantage it gained from ChatGPT's release in November 2022, it's also been mired in controversy.

No done deal

The ChatGPT maker's AI has been criticized for making critical errors and being prone to "hallucinations," bringing its reliability into question. The company has also been the subject of controversy, as CEO Sam Altman has come under fire from former employees over safety issues.

It's worth noting that neither company has confirmed the deal yet. It was previously reported that Apple had been in discussions with Google over an AI partnership, but OpenAI appears to have earned its favor.

One thing is certain: Apple is about to pitch the world on its plans to dominate the internet in the AI age.

Correction: June 6, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated the length of OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft. It started in 2019, not 2023.

• Tesla shareholders might have another reason to vote for Elon Musk's pay package this Thursday.
• Musk has been touting the benefits of having Tesla be a part of his business empire. 
• The billionaire has touted access to future IPOs and showcased the synergies between his businesses.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been pulling out all stops to woo shareholders ahead of Thursday's vote for his massive $56 billion pay package.

Besides campaigning on his social media platform X, Musk has also dangled the opportunity of a guided tour of Gigafactory Texas with him and Tesla's design chief, Franz von Holzhausen.

But those seem just to be appetizers because Musk has now brought out the big guns — promising shareholders that a Musk-led Tesla will have access to his sprawling business empire.

A ticket to the 'Muskonomy'

The pitch is a smart move for Musk, as it turns what looks like a liability — running half a dozen companies at the same time — into an asset.

Nowhere was that vision clearer than on Sunday, when Musk began touting the benefits of having Tesla as a part of his business universe.

Musk's The Boring Company revealed in an X post that its tunneling machine, the Prufrock-3, had emerged inside the Gigafactory Texas' expansion. The tunnel that is being constructed will soon be used to transport Tesla's Cybertrucks.

"Cybertunnel will be online July," the post said.

It's not just hardware. Musk is looking to leverage the software built by his $24 billion AI startup, xAI.

The billionaire was livestreaming himself playing Diablo on X when he revealed that Tesla's cars could come installed with xAI's chatbot, Grok, in the future.

Besides cross-pollinating his companies' tech, Musk is also promising multiple windfalls to Tesla shareholders if they stick with him.

On Saturday, Musk said he would prioritize "longtime shareholders of my other companies, including Tesla" if any of his businesses were to go public.

"Loyalty deserves loyalty," he wrote on X.

Musk might not have spelled it out, but his X post sounded like a veiled reference to the long-rumored IPO for his satellite internet business, Starlink.

To be sure, this isn't the first time Musk has leveraged his network of businesses.

xAI had earlier sold investors on the benefits of being a part of what it called the "Muskonomy," Bloomberg reported in February, citing a pitch deck it had obtained.

In its pitch deck, the company said that Tesla and X were its strategic partners, and it would provide them with training data.

Similarly, when Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, he quickly brought in software engineers from Tesla and SpaceX to review the social media company's code base.

In fact, some of Musk's lieutenants are still double hatting at his companies. For instance, SpaceX's principal security engineer, Christopher Stanley, is also X's head of information security.

"The right thing for Tesla at this time is for Elon to continue to be at the helm, and this ratification of the compensation plan is exactly about that," Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm told CNBC on June 6.

Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

• TSMC's CEO hinted at raising prices for Nvidia's AI chip products.
• Nvidia's market value recently hit $3 trillion, driving discussions on the value of its AI chips.
• TSMC plans price hikes for production outside Taiwan amid geopolitical concerns.

Nvidia's meteoric rise on the back of the AI boom has made it one of the world's most valuable companies and boosted the fortune of CEO Jensen Huang.

Now, key supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, appears to want in on the hype.

"I did complain to Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang — the 'three trillion guy' — that his products are so expensive," CC Wei, TSMC's CEO, said last week, per Nikkei.

Wei was referring to Nvidia's market value, which surpassed $3 trillion last week. The AI chipmaker submitted another blowout earnings report last month, with first-quarter revenue and earnings both beating Wall Street estimates.

Wei added that Nvidia's products are "really valuable for sure, but I am thinking about showing our value as well."

Wei's comments sparked speculation that TSMC — the world's largest contract chipmaker — is considering a price hike. TSMC produces, by some estimates, 90% of the world's most advanced processor chips.

TSMC sought to tamp down market speculation last week, telling local media that the company's pricing has always been "strategy-oriented rather than opportunity-oriented."

In April, an analyst asked if TSMC was reaping the benefits of the AI boom and how the CEO thinks about pricing.

"We are happy that our customers are doing well. And if customers do well, TSMC does well," Wei answered.

Nvidia's Huang doesn't appear to mind a price hike from TSMC.

He told reporters in Taiwan last week that TSMC's contribution to the industry is "really great."

"Raising prices is consistent with the value they deliver. I'm very happy to see them succeed," Huang said.

Morgan Stanley analysts wrote last week that Nvidia's management probably recognizes TSMC's reliability.

"We believe that if NVIDIA accepted price hikes, other key AI semi customers may follow," the analysts wrote in a note.

They estimated Nvidia will account for 10% of TSMC's 2024 revenue.

TSMC has already indicated price hikes for production outside of Taiwan

It isn't the first time this year that TSMC has signaled a price hike.

In April, Wei said the company plans to charge customers more if they want their chips made outside Taiwan.

"If my customer requests to be in some certain area, then definitely, TSMC and the customer had to share the incremental cost," the CEO said on TSMC's first-quarter earnings call. "In today's fragmented globalization environment, costs will be higher for everyone, including TSMC, our customers, our competitors, and the entire semiconductor industry."

Taiwan also hiked electricity rates for large industrial users in April, which would pressure TSMC's bottom line. Wei said inflation and electricity were leading to higher costs.

"We expect our customers to share some of the higher cost with us, and we already started our discussion with our customers," he said, declining to talk specifics about pricing strategies on the earnings call.

Used in everything from data centers to smartphones, chip production is now a geopolitical concern, since the world's chip production is concentrated in independently governed Taiwan — which China claims as its own territory.

There are fears that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could adversely impact the global economy and allow Beijing to seize TSMC's facilities.

TSMC is diversifying production with new facilities in Arizona, Japan, and Germany.

Wei said last week that TSMC has discussed moving some chip plants outside Taiwan, but that it was impossible to move all production out of the island.

TSMC's shares in Taiwan closed 1.7% lower at 879 New Taiwan dollars apiece on Friday and are up 48% year-to-date. The Taiwanese market is closed on Monday for a public holiday.

Nvidia shares closed 0.1% lower at $1,208.88 apiece on Friday after gaining over 140% year-to-date — ahead of a 10-for-1 stock split after the closing bell.

TSMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Russia is replenishing its troops with an unlikely source — African migrants and students.
• Thousands of Africans have been forced to join in Russia's war against Ukraine, per Bloomberg.
• The country has also been plugging its manpower gaps by sending prison inmates to the battlefield.

Russia is forcing thousands of African migrants and students to join in their war efforts against Ukraine, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, citing assessments from European officials.

According to Bloomberg's report, Russian officials have threatened not to renew the visas of African migrant workers and students if they didn't join the Russian Armed Forces.

Some African workers have even been threatened with deportation if they do not agree to fight in Ukraine, one European official told Bloomberg. Others have resorted to bribing Russian officials to stay out of the conflict, per the outlet.

A spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comment.

This wouldn't be the first time the country has turned to unorthodox and controversial recruitment measures to replenish its troops.

Russia's reliance on attrition warfare has seen it continually drawing on its prison population to fuel its war effort.

In October, Russia's Deputy Justice Minister Vsevolod Vukolov said the country's prison population had plunged to a historic low of 266,000, per The Washington Post. Russia's prison population stood at 420,000 before the war.

In fact, Russia has recruited so many inmates that it has started to close down some of its prisons.

A local official told lawmakers in March that some prisons had to be shut down because of "a one-time large reduction in the number of convicts," per the Russian newspaper Kommersant.

But conscripting its migrant population could put further pressure on the Russian economy, which has been grappling with severe labor shortages.

"Unemployment is 3%, and in some regions, it is even lower," Russian Central Bank Gov. Elvira Nabiullina told lawmakers in November. "This means there are practically no workers left in the economy."

Representatives for Russia's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.