Tag: News

• A "soft landing" scenario is unlikely for the US economy, Citi CEO Jane Fraser said. 
• The bank chief said that wealthier Americans are spending while lower-income income consumers are cutting back.
• "We're seeing a much more cautious low-income consumer," Fraser said.

It's going to be tough for the US to stick an economic soft landing, and rampant inflation is hitting lower-income Americans hard, Citi CEO Jane Fraser said. 

"It's hard to get a soft landing," Fraser told CNBC on Monday. "We're hopeful, but it is always hard to get one. So far the Fed is trying to navigate a quite complicated system."

At the latest Federal Reserve policy meeting, officials held the interest rates steady and ruled out a rate hike in response to sticky inflation. Markets have seen renewed hope of a soft landing since the April jobs report showed hiring and wage growth slowed, though not to recessionary levels. Yet, Fraser cautioned against declaring a soft landing was a done deal. 

"We have to see where wage inflation goes. We have to see what happens to services inflation. And I think we need some more data points," she said. "I think, like everyone here, we're hoping to see the economic conditions that will allow rates to come down sooner rather than later."

The Citi executive also said she's seeing a "K-shaped consumer" pattern, with affluent consumers ramping up their spending while low-income households are struggling with the higher cost of living. 

"We're seeing a much more cautious low-income consumer," Fraser said. "They're feeling more of the pressure of the cost of living, which has been high and increased for them. So while there is employment for them, debt servicing levels are higher than they were before."

Wall Street has been feeling fairly upbeat but a number of commentators are still voicing caution over trouble ahead. Gary Shilling and BCA strategist Roukaya Ibrahim this week forecast a recession by late this year or early 2025, potentially causing a 30% plunge in the stock market.

• Instacart is now offering restaurant delivery through Uber Eats on its app.
• The partnership represents "a threat to DoorDash," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told Bloomberg.
• It's also the latest way that Instacart is expanding its business beyond grocery delivery.

You can now get restaurant takeout through Instacart thanks to a new partnership with Uber Eats.

Instacart customers will be able to order from "hundreds of thousands" of restaurants through a tab on the delivery service's app just for restaurants, the company said Tuesday.

Restaurant orders placed through Instacart will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats gig workers. Users of Instacart+, the company's paid subscription service, will get free delivery on restaurant orders over $35.

The partnership, which will be rolled out over the next few weeks, allows customers "to conveniently tackle all their food needs from a single app," Instacart CEO Fidji Simo said.

"Whether it's ingredients for a beloved family recipe, a prepared meal from a nearby grocer or takeout from a favorite restaurant – customers can now get the food they want, from the retailers and restaurants they love, all within the Instacart app," Simo said.

"You could say that we're a threat to DoorDash both independently and teaming up as well," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told Bloomberg about the partnership, adding that the Uber will get access to Instacart's base of mostly suburban consumers through the partnership.

DoorDash controls about two-thirds of the market for food delivery in the US, per Bloomberg Second Measure.

Getting into restaurant delivery is the latest way that Instacart is expanding its business into new areas. The company plans to have thousands of its Caper shopping carts, which allow customers to ring up products as they place them in the cart, in stores by the end of the year.

Instacart is also trying to expand its advertising business, both through its website and app as well as through its Caper carts.

Do you work for DoorDash, Instacart, Uber Eats, or another gig delivery service and have a story idea? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com

• A 12th-century French castle, Château d'Armainvilliers, is being auctioned for around $454 million.
• The castle was previously owned by King Hassan II of Morocco.
• It could be transformed as part of a new city development outside Paris.

A 12th-century castle that once belonged to a Rothschild is being auctioned for a staggering €425 million, or around $454 million.

Once sold, the castle and its grounds could be transformed into a new city development just outside Paris, a spokesperson for Ignace Meuwissen, a luxury real-estate agent who is handling the sale with his company Whisper Auctions, told Business Insider.

The 17-bedroom castle, known as Château d'Armainvilliers, dates back to the 12th century and is around 30 miles outside Paris, according to Mansion Global. It was once owned by Edmond de Rothschild, who sold it to King Hassan II of Morocco, a spokesperson for Meuwissen told Business Insider.

Meuwissen told Mansion Global that it's one of the most expensive real-estate listings in the world.

But despite its connection to royalty, a spokesperson said the castle "may not hold much historical value" to the future buyer and will likely be favored because of its large size. The castle is 2,500 square meters and has an additional 1,000 hectares of surrounding land.

Château d'Armainvilliers has three floors with 17 bedrooms.

The castle is 2,500 square meters in size, consisting of three floors with three elevators, 17 bedrooms, five reception rooms, a hairdressing salon, a kitchen, separate housing for staff members, and stables that can hold up to 50 horses, a spokesperson for Ignace Meuwissen told BI.

A developer could transform the castle and its grounds into 'a new city.'

The sale is being handled by Whisper Auctions, which represents off-market, luxury properties. The company's listings start at 2.5 million euros, or around $2.6 million, according to its website.

Ignace Meuwissen, the company's cofounder, is "in discussions with developers" who could transform the castle and surrounding area into a city, a spokesperson said.

Meuwissen's vision "entails the possibility of developing a new city near Paris, with the historical significance of the castle being of secondary importance," they said.

They added that the project would involve the creation of apartments, commercial centers, and other amenities. It's unclear if the castle would have to be refurbished or demolished for the development to take place.

Take a look inside one of the castle's five reception rooms, which stands out for its colorful decor.

The castle's decor is loud and colorful. This room has bright blue chairs and red throw cushions, while others have extravagant chandeliers, vibrant paintings, and grand pillars.

The castle's 17 bedrooms all have their own unique look.

One of the bedrooms, photographed above, has a chandelier and a walk-in closet and is decorated with several armchairs, a dressing table, mirrors, and a double bed.

The property was last put on the market in 2008.

Speaking to Mansion Global, Meuwissen said King Hassan's son inherited the castle following his death in 1999. He sold it in 2008 for 200 million euros, or around $215,500 million, Meuwissen told the outlet.

"The property was purchased by an owner from the Middle East but has never been utilized," Meuwissen said.

The castle has generated interest from around the world.

The castle has generated worldwide interest, with press outlets including Architectural Digest and The New York Post writing about the listing.

Meuwissen told Mansion Global that the property has received interest from international buyers, including one person from Eastern Europe and three people from Asia.

• Apple launched new accessories for its latest lineup of iPads on Tuesday at its "Let Loose" event.
• That includes the $129 Pencil Pro and a new Magic Keyboard starting at $299. 
• You can preorder the add-ons as of today, which will be available next week.

Apple announced fresh accessories for its newest iPad models during its "Let Loose" event on Tuesday.

There's a new, more advanced stylus called the Apple Pencil Pro, which Apple claims is a "game changer for users to express ideas and creativity." Starting at $129, the Pencil Pro includes a new sensor on the barrel roll that users can squeeze to bring up a new tool palette with line weights and colors to make art.

Artists using the Pencil Pro on the graphic design software Pro Create can press the barrel row to do things like activate shortcuts to brushes, change the image size automatically, and introduce color.

Meanwhile, the Pencil Pro "pairs, charges, and stores" using a magnetic on the side of the iPad Pro. Users can locate the Pencil Pro using the "Find My" location feature.

Apple's new Pencil Pro also pairs with another new attachable iPad Pro accessory: the Magic Keyboard. It's the first iteration of the keyboard since 2020, and Apple says it's been redesigned to be "much thinner and even lighter" than its predecessor.

The new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro comes in two colors, black and white. It also comes in two separate sizes: one for the 11-inch Pro for $299 and another for the 13-inch Pro model for $349.

Some of the keyboard's new features include a function row for easy access to controls like screen brightness; aluminum palm rests; and a larger trackpad.

"The entire experience feels just like using a MacBook," Apple said on the call, adding that the new keyboard makes the new iPad Pro "more portable and versatile" than ever.

Apple says the Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard are available for pre-order as of today and will ship starting next week.

• A German political party proposed a government cap on doner kebabs.
• The price of the popular dish has more than doubled due to inflation, The Guardian reported.
• Chancellor Scholz previously dismissed the possibility of price caps.

A German political party is calling for the government to cap the soaring price of doner kebabs, which has more than doubled in the past two years due to inflation.

The food has been a staple in Germany since it was introduced by Turkish immigrants in the 1970s.

Around €7 billion, or around $7.5 billion, worth of doner kebabs are sold every year in Germany, according to The Guardian and The Independent.

The Left Party said some kebab businesses had increased prices from €4 (around $4.30) to €10 (around $10.80) in two years, The Guardian reported.

Kathi Gebel, the youth policy spokesperson on the board of the Left Party, told Business Insider that kebabs cost at least €7 ($7.55) across the country.

She said the government "must intervene to prevent food from becoming a luxury item."

The party plans to propose a government price cap of €4.90 (around $5.30) or €2.90 (around $3.10) for young people, The Guardian reported.

It reportedly envisages using billions of euros of state funds to cap the price. It would then use subsidised vouchers to make up the difference for distributors.

In an Instagram post, the German government said in February that prices of the doner kebab are rising because of rising wages and energy costs.

"High rent, energy, and food are the main costs for kebab shops. If those decrease, then kebab prices also decrease," Gebel told BI.

"The kebab price will remain high if the government does not change anything," she said.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke about the issue in the past, saying that he is asked by young people "everywhere I go" if there should be a price reduction for doner kebabs, according to the outlet.

In 2023, Scholz was heckled by a member of the public who said: "Speak with Putin … I'm paying eight euro for a doner."

Scholz previously ruled out implementing price caps, instead highlighting the "good work of the European Central Bank" in handling inflation, according to The Guardian.

The Federal Statistical Office said overall consumer prices in Germany rose by 5.9% in 2023. It added that energy prices in the country rose by 5.3% in 2023, compared to a staggering 29.7% increase in 2022.

The organization said the increase in prices could be attributed to the "impact of war and multiple crises."

The German government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• Ukraine used exploding drone boats to attack Russian naval assets on Monday.
• Footage and imagery from the attack appeared to show drones with an unusual adaptation.
• The unmanned systems could be seen armed with what were identified as heat-seeking missiles. 

Ukraine appears to be arming its naval drones with heat-seeking missiles to defend against air attacks, an unusual innovation for Kyiv's growing arsenal of explosive unmanned systems.

The newly upgraded drone boats were first observed in combat on Monday during a Ukrainian attack that resulted in a hit on a Russian military speedboat in the occupied Crimean peninsula.

Russia's defense ministry published footage of a helicopter defending against one of the Ukrainian drones during the attack. In the video, the unmanned boat can be seen evading heavy fire slightly above the waterline while carrying a white object that appears to resemble a missile. Eventually, there's an explosion. Moscow claims it destroyed five drones during the engagement.

After the attack, various open-source intelligence accounts, Russian military bloggers, and other observers began to point out on social media that the Ukrainian drone boats had been outfitted with R-73 short-range air-to-air missiles.

Photos circulating online showed at least one drone with two launching rails and a single missile, and additional video footage that surfaced online appeared to capture the engagement from inside a Russian helicopter.

Business Insider was unable to immediately verify the footage and images published from the attack, nor could it independently confirm that the Ukrainian drones were outfitted with R-73 missiles.

Called the AA-11 Archer by NATO, the Soviet-era R-73 missile is equipped with infrared homing technology and is typically carried by fighter aircraft like the MiG-29 or Su-35. Equipping the Ukrainian drones with this kind of air-combat munition could help them defend against aerial attacks, war watchers suspect.

"Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces had adapted the drones to defend against Russian strikes, particularly from helicopters, with heat-seeking missiles and to break through containment booms," conflict analysts at the Institute for the Study of War think tank wrote in a Monday assessment.

They added that "several prominent Russian milbloggers expressed anger that the Russian military bureaucracy is causing Russian forces to respond too slowly to Ukrainian maritime drone adaptations."

One milblogger affiliated with Russia's Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper noted on Telegram that the Ukrainian missile innovation for sea drones came in response to increased Russian helicopter patrols around the Black Sea.

"From the air they are easier to detect and quickly destroy," they said of the drones, noting that the Ukrainian uncrewed vessel managed to fire a missile at the helicopter but missed. They said these drones might be used to provide cover for other uncrewed vessels.

A general in the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, previously told BI that Russia constantly has planes and combat helicopters patrolling around the western Black Sea as it struggles to protect its naval assets from Kyiv's fleet of exploding drone boats.

Ukraine doesn't have a proper navy, so it has relied heavily on exploding drone boats and long-range cruise missiles to wreak havoc on Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Kyiv has damaged and destroyed scores of warships and forced Moscow to relocate many of its vulnerable capabilities away from the fleet headquarters in Crimea to positions across the Black Sea to the Russian port city of Novorossiysk.

Monday's naval drone attack marked the latest strike on a Russian naval asset. A Ukrainian Magura V5 drone boat struck a smaller, $3 million Russian combat vessel.

Kyiv's military intelligence agency said after the attack that "since the fear of Ukrainian attacks forces the occupiers to hide large ships of the Black Sea Fleet away from the peninsula, combat work continues against the high-speed maneuverable military vessels of the Russians."

• General Motors is seeking to recruit students impacted by Tesla's recent internship rescindments.
• Tesla has been laying off workers and revoking internships as part of recent cutbacks.
• GM has a history of hiring former Tesla employees, including high-ranking executives.

General Motors is ready to capitalize on Tesla layoffs — at least according to one recruiter.

Laura del Amo, a talent sourcing strategist for GM, took to LinkedIn on Monday to call on students who'd been hit by Tesla's recent decision to rescind internship offers to reach out for opportunities at the Detroit-based automaker.

"In light of recent industry news, GM is extending an invite to software students who may have been impacted from the changes in Tesla's upcoming summer internship cohort," the recruiter wrote. "We believe in the strength of our automotive community and are keen to integrate diverse talents into our team. If you are now looking for a new internship opportunity, let's connect."

Del Amo and a spokesperson for GM did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider ahead of publication.

Last week, several students who'd been offered internships at Tesla said the company had canceled their offers just a few weeks before their programs were set to start. The internship program is just one of several areas where Tesla has made cutbacks over the past month. On April 15, Tesla CEO Elon Musk told staff the company planned to eliminate more than 10% of its workforce. Since, it has has continued to layoff workers in waves. On Monday, Tesla workers entered their fourth week of layoff notices.

It's not the first time GM has scooped up a former Tesla employee. In February, the automaker hired Kurt Kelty, a former executive at Tesla, to serve as VP of Battery. And in March GM brought in JP Clausen, the former VP of Tesla's Austin Gigafactory.

Do you work for Tesla or have a tip? Reach out to the reporter via a non-work email and device at gkay@businessinsider.com

• Stormy Daniels took the stand at Trump's hush-money trial Tuesday.
• The adult-film actress stood 20 feet from Trump in court and swore to tell the truth.
• Trump allegedly falsified records to hide an election-influencing, $130,000 hush-money payment to Daniels.

He calls her "horseface." She calls him "Tiny."

On Tuesday, these two arch-enemies — with a potential felony conviction at stake — faced each other for the first time in a decade at former President Donald Trump's criminal hush-money trial.

"My name is Stormy Daniels," the porn star at the center of the historic trial said as she swore to tell the truth while at the witness stand of a Manhattan courtroom, just 20 feet from Trump.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, wore black-rimmed glasses and an all-black loose-fitting shirt and sweater as she took the witness said.

Trump sat at the defense table, his posture slightly slumped. He looked down at the defense table, not at Daniels, as she began her testimony.

Daniels began her testimony by answering biographical information for the jury.

She told the court she moved out of her family home in high school because she had trouble living with her mother.

"Have you supported yourself ever since?" Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked.

"Yes," she responded.

Daniels told the jury she directed her first adult film at age 23

"I was one of the youngest, if not the youngest, adult feature directors," she said.

Daniels — and the $130,000 hush money payment that purchased her silence just 11 days before the 2016 election — is the reason Trump has been on trial in Manhattan since mid-April.

Prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg say that Trump falsified 34 Trump Organization business documents throughout 2017, his first week in office, when he reimbursed then-attorney and fixer Michael Cohen for paying Daniels the hush money.

The business records — shown to jurors for the first time on Monday — disguised Cohen's reimbursement checks as "legal fees," hiding what was actually an illegal conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, prosecutors say.

Daniels is an adult entertainment entrepreneur who has capitalized on her connection to Trump, writing a book, participating in a controversial documentary, and embarking on a "Make America Horny Again" tour of strip clubs.

She and Trump, the then-Apprentice star, had sex one night in 2006, she insists, in Trump's hotel suite during a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe — an allegation Trump vehemently denies.

In a now-deleted early Tuesday morning post on Trump's social media platform, Truth Social, the former president fumed after he apparently found out Daniels would take the witness stand on Tuesday.

"I have just recently been told who the witness is today. This is unprecedented, no time for lawyers to prepare," Trump's 7:30 a.m. post read, adding, "No judge has ever run a trial in such a biased and partisan way."

When asked by a reporter in the courtroom hallway why he deleted the post, Trump ignored the question and instead denounced the protests taking place on college campuses over the Israel-Hamas war.

Additionally, Trump again maintained that the payments to Cohen were for a "legal expense."

"They marked it down in the books, the check was signed," Trump told reporters before he headed into the courtroom. "And the other thing, this was approved by all agencies, everybody saw this, there was nothing being hidden at all."

Before the jury was called in Tuesday, attorneys for Trump objected to Daniels "testifying about any sexual act."

"We're informed the witness today, the second witness, will be Stormy Daniels," Trump defense attorney Susan Necheles told New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, adding that testimony about any sexual act would be "unduly prejudicial."

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger explained that there will be details in Daniels' testimony about how the porn star "ended up having a sexual encounter" with Trump.

"In terms of the sexual act, it's going to be very basic," she added. "It's not going to be descriptions of genitalia or anything of that nature."

Still, Necheles said, "There's just no need for any of those details here."

"There's real questions about the credibility of this woman," Necheles said of Daniels. "This is a case about books and records."

Merchan said Daniels has "credibility issues," but that he was "satisfied with the representations that Ms. Hoffinger has made."

This is a breaking story; please check back for developments.

• Prices in the US could keep going up if the US doesn't "reindustrialize" its economy, Richard Bernstein said.
• The US has a "massive" trade deficit at a time when world trade is becoming fragmented, he noted.
• Deglobalization could disrupt supply chains and push up costs, market experts have warned.

Inflation will climb higher if the US economy doesn't reindustrialize its economy, according to investment manager Richard Bernstein.

The Richard Bernstein Advisors CEO pointed to the US's "massive" trade deficit, with the difference between imports and exports clocking in at $773.4 billion last year, according to the Commerce Department. 

That trade imbalance could lead to trouble for the economy, considering the ongoing trend of deglobalization. World trade has become more fragmented since the pandemic, and rising geopolitical tensions are a sign that the trend is continuing, he said.

That suggests the US needs to reindustrialize its economy or face higher prices as a long-term consequence, he warned.

"It has to happen. If it doesn't … we're going to have tremendous inflation here in the United States," Bernstein said to CNBC on Monday. "We're dependent on the world for everything at a time when globalization is starting to contract. Not a good combination. It changes the story from secular disinflation to secular inflation."

Market commentators have warned that deglobalization could be a major factor keeping inflation elevated for years to come. Billionaire investor Ken Griffin predicted last year that high prices could stick around for decades as fragmented world trade will disrupt supply chains and push up costs for consumers.

Reindustrialization efforts in the US are already underway, with the government offering billions in aid for companies to build new infrastructure and produce key goods, like semiconductors, EVs, and solar panels. More firms are already choosing to manufacture their goods in America, a JPMorgan paper found. 

Bernstein has been calling for a reindustrialization of the US economy over the past decade. In 2012, he published a whitepaper calling for an "industrial renaissance," which would take US manufacturing back to levels recorded in the 50s and 60s. That renaissance will be the predominant theme in the market over the next 10 years, he said in a note earlier this year. 

• This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Hello! This Sunday is Mother's Day, which I'm sure you already know. But just in case it slipped your mind, here are some last-minute gift ideas.

In today's big story, we're looking at the new tech Apple's set to unveil at its event.

What's on deck:

• Markets: Blackstone's high-profile real-estate fund could be in trouble.

• Tech: ChatGPT who? Microsoft is reportedly building its own AI model.

• Business: Meet nuclear power's newest fans: data centers.

But first, Apple is showing off some new toys.

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The big story

Apple's other new tech

Apple's unveiling new products today, but they're not the ones you might be thinking of.

The tech giant's event will reportedly showcase a new family of… iPads and iPad accessories.

The crowd goes mild!

You're forgiven if you weren't aware iPads were still a thing, let alone getting updated. Apple's tablet didn't upend industries like the iPod or iPhone.

But Apple's event, which kicks off at 10 a.m. EST, is looking to give the iPad a boost. Business Insider's Antonio Villas-Boas has a rundown of what to expect.

The tablet's main issue has been its existence in a no-man's land. Less powerful than a computer but not much better than a mobile phone, the iPad has a limited set of specific use cases. The new iPads will reportedly feature better displays, a thinner design, and a MacBook processor.

(Personally, my iPad primarily serves as a second TV when my wife gets sick of me watching sports in the living room.)

The update comes not a moment too soon for Apple. iPhone sales have noticeably dipped, which is why you're hearing Apple tout its "services" business, writes BI's Peter Kafka.

But even that's a bit of a misnomer. A good chunk of that growing "services" business is the billions of dollars it receives from Google for giving the search engine prime real estate, Peter writes.

And the new product Apple wants you to be excited about — the Vision Pro — hasn't lived up to the hype. One of the biggest issues, writes BI's Katie Notopoulos, is that it's unclear what the headset should be used for.

It's not all bad news. Apple reported strong earnings last week, and, more importantly, pulled Wall Street's favorite lever: buybacks.

Apple still has some exciting things in the pipeline.

AI, naturally, is a big one. All eyes are on how the tech will be integrated into the iPhone. Apple has remained tight-lipped, with CEO Tim Cook only teasing a big AI announcement in the "coming weeks."

I decided to ask Katie what she'd like to see out of the Apple event today:

"New iPads aren't really too exciting unless you're already planning to buy a new iPad. (I'm not planning on it, and if I was, I'd probably get an iPad Mini, which isn't expected to get an update at this event.)

But I am curious to see if the new iPad Pros will have the latest M4 chip, which isn't even in MacBooks and Macs yet. If it is, we'll get a peek at what it's capable of when it comes to regular computers later on.

I'm also looking forward to watching the livestream, because even if the Apple Pencil is kind of boring (to me), these Apple events are always fascinating: a huge marketing spectacle that always has some subtle clues about how Apple wants to position itself."

3 things in markets

1. Blackstone's $114 billion real-estate fund has veteran analysts worried. The private-equity giant found success pitching ordinary investors on BREIT, a commercial real-estate fund. But some veteran analysts, accountants, and investors believe Blackstone's estimates of BREIT's assets are wildly inflated, making it essentially a house of cards.

2. You thought your interest payments were bad… The US government is shelling out $2 million a minute for interest payments on its debt. The first three months of the year saw the US Treasury foot a $234 billion bill in interest expenses.

3. Recession watch. Official data from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows a promising trend — that economic slumps are becoming less common. But some analysts, including veteran forecaster Danielle DiMartino Booth, are warning that the recession might already be here as job cuts accelerate.

3 things in tech

1. Jack Dorsey's in his "I love Elon" era. Dorsey has loved and hated Elon Musk over the years. Now it looks like he's fawning over the Tesla CEO. Most recently, Dorsey announced he was no longer on the board of Bluesky, a prominent rival of Musk's X.

2. Satya Nadella could prove Microsoft doesn't need OpenAI. The company is reportedly working on its own in-house AI model called MAI-1. Its successful development could prove Microsoft doesn't need ChatGPT maker OpenAI to get ahead in the AI wars.

3. Tech titans have weird management habits. From Jeff Bezos' "two-pizza rule" to Mark Zuckerberg wearing the same outfit every day, here's a round-up of the unconventional practices employed by some of the world's best-known CEOs.

3 things in business

1. Nuclear power + data centers = "perfect marriage." Data-center operators like Amazon have sought out nuclear power to fuel soaring growth. Nuclear execs see it as a boon, but energy experts worry about the implications for the power grid.

2. How much Warren Buffett lost on Paramount. The Berkshire Hathaway investor says he lost "quite a bit of money" betting on the media company. He didn't disclose how much money he lost, but we tried doing the math. It could be around $1.5 billion.

3. a16z joins the Big Tech "fake work" debate. In an interview published Monday with Emily Sundberg for her Substack newsletter "Feed Me," Andreessen Horowitz general partner David Ulevitch called Google "an amazing example" of a corporation employing people in "BS jobs." Around half the tech giant's white-collar staff probably do "no real work," he added.

In other news

• Columbia University just canceled its commencement.

• Trump hit with 10th gag violation and warning: next time, jail.

• Howard Schultz tells Starbucks to fix its stores and mobile app to reverse 'fall from grace.'

• A financial analyst who quit to study tai chi shares the simple morning exercise she uses to prevent burnout.

• Tesla sends out another wave of layoff notices as employees enter 4th week of job cuts.

• Condé Nast has reached a deal with its union, and some call it bittersweet.

• Fisker is closing its Manhattan Beach headquarters, employees say.

• All the looks celebrities wore to the 2024 Met Gala.

What's happening today

• Today's earnings: The Walt Disney Company, Reddit, and other companies are reporting.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin will be inaugurated today after winning elections in March.

The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. George Glover, reporter, in London.