Closing arguments on remedies for Google's search monopoly — which could include the forced sale of its Chrome browser — focused, in part, on artificial intelligence, and whether AI is already a disruptor of online search. U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta asked Justice Department lawyers if ChatGPT and Perplexity are new forms of competition, and conversely, if a new general search engine could realistically come for Google. A DOJ attorney argued Google could use its outsized influence to curb the AI upstarts. A ruling is expected in August.

Jamie Dimon’s Friday warning about a looming crack in the bond market added to the JPMorgan Chase CEO’s history of sounding the alarm about economic perils. But a CNBC review of 20 years of Dimon’s public statements reveals his warnings grew more frequent even as his bank outperformed rivals — a tendency that may reflect Dimon’s experience and underlying awareness that financial institutions like the one he runs are inherently fragile. Alternatively, one analyst suggests, Dimon simply hopes to keep his employees on their toes.

I want to start off by congratulating the E.L.F. BEAUTY team for another year of industry-leading growth. For our Fiscal Year 2025, we grew net sales by +28%, and Q4 marks our 25th consecutive quarter of both net sales and market share growth, putting e.l.f. Beauty is in the rarefied group among just 6 high-growth companies out of 546 public consumer companies. Importantly, all our distinct yet complementary brands grew this past year, also a rare feat and truly exceptional.

Today, we are announcing a phenomenal addition to our portfolio, supporting our vision to create a different kind of company by building brands that disrupt norms, shape culture, and connect communities. I am thrilled to share that e.l.f. Beauty signed a definitive agreement to acquire Rhode, the fast-growing, multi-category lifestyle beauty brand founded by Hailey Bieber. We are excited to nurture Hailey’s special vision as a founder to elevate and accelerate the brand’s potential for transformative global expansion.

From day one, Hailey has positioned herself as a founder: curious, committed, and hands-on in every aspect of the brand’s evolution. The desire to remove prestige beauty barriers was out of admiration and respect for her community -- and has helped foster a strong emotional connection with fans and followers. rhode shares many of the whitespaces that we see for our other brands: cosmetics, skin care and international. We are looking forward to working with Hailey, CEO Nick Vlahos and Co-Founders Michael D. Ratner and Lauren Ratner, and the entire Los Angeles-based team to further grow and expand the rocketship for this brand. Together, we have a richer, more diversified portfolio that will continue to break beauty barriers. Our primary focus is to realize the potential we see across our collective company. We really are just getting started.

AI Took the Job You Were Promised. Now What?

When I graduated, there was no AI. Just ambition, AOL, and a fax machine.
No one tells you what to do when the map disappears.
You graduate. You do everything right.
And then the roles you were aiming for—rewritten by an algorithm.

This isn’t a detour.
This is the road now.

Here’s what I know:
1.Learn to monetize your uniqueness. What can you do that GPT can’t fake?

2.Don’t wait for a job—create something. A newsletter, a course, a referral network.

3.Find four other people and form a crew. Share resources. Test ideas. Make money together.

4. Stop chasing permission. You don’t need a company to validate you. Start making noise.

Two financial tips that matter now:

Learn how to apply AI to real business problems—not just prompt it, but use it to save time, improve ROI, or make smarter decisions. Bring that to every interview.

Position yourself as a translator between AI and people. Most companies don’t need another coder—they need someone who understands behavior, communication, and strategy.

Start ugly.
Launch something unpolished - interview with honesty
Say one true thing, out loud, every day.
And if you're scared? Good. I was scared too and it all worked out.
That’s how you know you’re not sleepwalking.

For all the drama surrounding U.S. President Donald Trump's trade tariffs, the world economy is holding up better than many had expected.

The latest data from the United States, China, and, to a lesser extent, Europe are showing resilience, and the global economy as a whole is still expected to grow modestly this year.

This is in part due to U.S. buyers and foreign sellers bringing forward business while many of the import duties unveiled by U.S. President Donald Trump remain suspended.

"We are seeing a bit of a sugar rush in industry, with manufacturers bringing forward production and trade," said Holger Schmieding, an economist at investment bank Berenberg.

"The other thing is that we have evidence that Trump backed off on tariffs. The bet in markets and to some extent in the economy is that he barks but doesn't bite."

Investment banks and institutions generally expect the United States to avoid a recession this year and the global economy to keep growing.

The International Monetary Fund downgraded its global GDP growth forecast by just 0.5 percentage points last month to 2.8%.

This is roughly in line with the trend over the past decade and a far cry from the downturns experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2008 financial crisis, or even the turmoil that followed the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001.

No one is venturing a prediction on where the trade negotiations will eventually settle, particularly with a U.S. president who sees himself as unstoppable.

This week alone, separate U.S. courts first blocked and then reinstated Trump's tariffs, creating a degree of legal uncertainty that will do little to facilitate trade deals between the United States and those threatened with the levies.

While the EU celebrated "new impetus" in its trade talks with the United States, negotiations with China were "a bit stalled," according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Companies are counting the cost of the ongoing impasse.

A Reuters analysis of corporate disclosures shows Trump's trade war had cost companies more than $34 billion in lost sales and higher costs, a toll that is expected to rise as ongoing uncertainty over tariffs paralyses decision making at some of the world's largest companies.

This is likely to result in a hit, especially for Japan. The United States is Japan's biggest export destination, accounting for 21 trillion yen ($146.16 billion) worth of goods, with automobiles representing roughly 28% of the total.

"While the worst shocks may be over, there's still a lot up in the air," Xingchen Yu, a strategist at UBS's Chief Investment Office, said. "We don't really know what a new normal for tariffs would look like, unfortunately."

But so far, the global economy has held up pretty well.

China's output and exports are resilient as its companies re-route trade to the United States via third countries.

Even in Europe, manufacturing activity was at a 33-month high in May, rebounding from a slump induced by more expensive fuel following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Confidence was also buttressed by the prospect of greater fiscal spending in Germany, a missing ingredient for European growth for the past couple of decades.

The robustness of the world economy has surprised even professional forecasters. A measure produced by U.S. bank Citi that tracks the degree to which global economic data has surprised to the upside is now at its highest in more than a year. Some of that strength circles back to the tariffs themselves and the attempts by U.S. households and businesses to front-load purchases to beat anticipated price increases later this year.

U.S. imports were up around 30% in March from where they were in October.

The risk to the upbeat outlook comes from the expected "payback" of those advance purchases, which are unlikely to be repeated and will mean slower activity in the U.S. and elsewhere later.

Economists still fear a triple whammy in which the front-loaded boost to the goods sector is unwound while U.S. household purchasing power is squeezed by higher prices and companies put off investment and hiring.

At the margin, however, this scenario is starting to appear a little less likely after Trump's pause on tariffs.

"The balance has slightly shifted towards more optimism, albeit with uncertainty and volatility," ING's global head of macro Carsten Brzeski said.

  Austinites may soon be able to hop in a Tesla robotaxi, as Elon Musk's electric vehicle maker targets a possible June 12 launch and has already started testing its driverless Model Y vehicles in the city.

Musk posted on his social media site X on Thursday, saying Tesla has already started testing self-driving Model Y cars in Austin over the past several days. The company previously promised a June start date for testing.

Musk announced initial plans to bring a paid ride-hailing service, powered by Tesla's robotaxis, to Austin this year. That date appears to be sooner rather than later, as Bloomberg reported the Austin-based automaker is prepping for a June 12 robotaxi launch, although the date could change.

Some reports earlier this month indicated that Tesla had not started testing without drivers as of mid-May.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) wrote in a May 8 letter to Tesla that the agency, "would like to gather additional information about Tesla's development of technologies for use in 'robotaxi' vehicles to understand how Tesla plans to evaluate its vehicles and driving automation technologies for use on public roads."

This data is key for public safety and for approval from NHTSA.

The Model Y robotaxi vehicles are the same as those sold to the public. Tesla has faced significant delays with the production of a newer, more affordable version.

Neither Tesla nor Musk has provided explicit details about how Tesla's rideshare service will operate.

Musk unveiled the self-driving Cybercab robotaxi models last October at his company's "We, Robot" event. The two-door models feature no steering wheels, gas, or brake pedals. At the event, Musk claimed the fully autonomous vehicles would be "10 times safer than a human."

The tech billionaire first teased the robotaxi in 2019 and has claimed since 2016 that Tesla is about a year away from delivering a self-driving car.

Musk's company will not be the first autonomous ride-hailing service in Austin.

In partnership with Uber, Waymo launched across Austin ahead of this year's South by Southwest Conference and Festival. The signature differences between Waymo and Tesla's self-driving vehicles are that Musk's company relies mainly on camera sensors, whereas Waymo's vehicles rely on lidar, radar, and camera sensors for guidance.

Tesla's June target for a robotaxi launch aligns with its CEO's renewed focus on his business.

Musk, who has served as the head of the federal government's Department of Government Efficiency since President Donald Trump took office, announced this week that he is officially walking away from Washington.

His role with DOGE, which was always meant to be temporary, abruptly came to an end this week. Tesla has faced a substantial decline in sales this year, with profits in the first quarter of 2025 falling 71% compared to the same period last year. The company also recently recorded its fourth consecutive month of slumped European sales, even though electric vehicle adoption rates are up.

In Tesla's April earnings call, Musk said he'd be spending more time at his companies in the coming months, but that has since shifted to completely leaving politics behind. Ahead of his aerospace company SpaceX's launch on Tuesday, he told a journalist that he spent "too much time" on politics this year.

Musk's move back to work also comes just after Tesla investors, who collectively own about 7.9 million shares in the company, penned a letter to the company's board chair demanding that Musk return to a 40-hour work week at the company.

“Tesla’s stock price volatility, declining sales, as well as disconcerting reports regarding the company’s human rights practices, and a plummeting global reputation are cause for serious concern,” the letter stated. “Moreover, many issues are linked to Mr. Musk’s actions outside of his role as Technoking and Chief Executive Officer at Tesla, including his high-profile role as an architect of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).”

An appeals court on Friday refused to freeze a California-based judge’s order halting the Trump administration from downsizing the federal workforce, which means that the Department of Government Efficiency-led cuts remain on pause for now.

A split three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the downsizing could have significant ripple effects on everything from the nation’s food-safety system to veteran health care, and should stay on hold while a lawsuit plays out.

The judge who dissented, however, said President Donald Trump likely does have the legal authority to downsize the executive branch, and there is a separate process for workers to appeal.

The Republican administration had sought an emergency stay of an injunction issued by U.S. Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco in a lawsuit brought by labor unions and cities, including San Francisco and Chicago, and the group Democracy Forward.

The Justice Department has also previously appealed her ruling to the Supreme Court, one of a string of emergency appeals arguing federal judges had overstepped their authority.

The judge’s order questioned whether Trump’s administration was acting lawfully in trying to pare the federal workforce.

Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped billionaire Elon Musk to lead the charge through the Department of Government Efficiency.

Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programs, or have been placed on leave. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go.

Illston’s order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management.

Illston, who was nominated to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, wrote in her ruling that presidents can make large-scale overhauls of federal agencies, but only with the cooperation of Congress.

Lawyers for the government say that the executive order and memo calling for large-scale personnel reductions and reorganization plans provided only general principles that agencies should follow in exercising their own decision-making process.

__

A key inflation gauge slowed more than expected in April, as Americans braced for the impact of sweeping new tariffs. The U.S. Personal Consumption and Expenditures price index rose an annual 2.1%, down from 2.3% in the prior month, the Commerce Department said Friday. Spending also slowed, increasing just 0.1%, after jumping 0.7% in March as consumers rushed to stockpile ahead of the duties. The price index is favored by the Federal Reserve, which is waiting to see the effect of tariffs on inflation and jobs before moving on rates.

A Friday trifecta of good news on inflation and consumers

The last trading day of May has delivered a trio of favorable economic data releases, even if financial markets aren’t paying much attention to anything that isn’t either tariffic or tarrifying.

Here’s the data, followed by what it means for the economy:

On the inflation front, the headline Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index for April came in at a tame 2.1% on a year-over-year basis, down from 2.3% in March and the lowest reading since September 2024.

Core PCE, which excludes the volatile food and energy components and is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation barometer, dipped to 2.5% in April, versus 2.7% in March. It’s still above the Fed’s 2.0% target but trending in the right direction.

Personal income was up a strong +0.8% for April, double the +0.4% forecast and a tick higher than March’s upwardly revised +0.7% (originally reported at +0.5%).

Despite the gains in personal income, consumer spending slowed significantly in April, rising +0.2% (versus +0.4% expected), well below March’s +0.75%.

The third of today’s data releases worth noting is the final print of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May, which stood at 52.2 — a better-than-anticipated improvement from its preliminary reading of 50.8.

So what does today’s positive 3-for-3 data tell us?

First, April’s cooling PCE report could mark the low point for inflation, as most goods inventories were sold before U.S. tariffs were implemented.

The potential inflationary impact of these tariffs will probably be more prominent in May’s PCE data, so it’s too early to celebrate.

Second, the Fed isn’t likely to accelerate its timetable for rate cuts based on April’s benign inflation numbers.

We still expect the Fed to lower rates twice in 2025, by 25 basis points (bps) each time, but investors shouldn’t look for any policy changes until there’s greater clarity on tariffs.

This week’s dueling court decisions suggest the needed clarity may arrive later rather than sooner.

Chevrolet?

The 1,064 Chevy Corvette ZR1 has joined European exotics despite a sticker price that is a fraction of its storied competitors. While the $174,995 ZR1, which Chevy made available for media testing at America’s formidable Circuit of the Americas Formula One course outside of Austin, is hardly affordable, it's a bargain compared to, say, the 1,018-horsepower, $850,00 Ferrari SF90 XX or 1,160-horsepower, $3.5 million Aston Valkyrie

Chevy’s secret sauce, GM executives say, is leveraging in-house engineering, a strong supplier base, and the General’s formidable army of manufacturing resources.

“First off, you might ask why the others are charging so much money,” smiled Vice President for Global Chevrolet Scott Bell in an interview here. “(This is) in our DNA. Corvette, from the very beginning, has been about having something aspirational, but also attainable. And our engineers just continue to push to places I never dreamed.”

Unlike small volume production cars like the SF90 XX, of which only 1,398 are planned, the Corvette is built on a dedicated, automated assembly line in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

European exotics’ small numbers guarantee exclusivity and high resale residuals for wealthy collectors, whereas Chevrolet has long prioritized volume production, company insiders say, to make it an attainable supercar.

The in-house production is a point of particular pride for GM. When crosstown rival Ford, for example, set its sights on the supercar class with its mid-engine, carbon fiber-tubbed Ford GT, it followed the European exotic model. The limited production, $500,000-plus model was produced from 2017-2022 for a total of 1,350 units by specialty performance manufacturer Multimatic in Toronto (Multimatic is also producing Ford's front-engine 2025 Mustang GTD supercar that's estimated to start at $350k).

“(The ZR1) is made in Bowling Green, Kentucky, by all of our team members. It's engineered in Detroit. So this is a big American story,” said GM President Mark Reuss. “It's not farmed out. It's not made somewhere else, and the starting price is something that we're all very proud of.”

While the move to a mid-engine platform opened a bigger envelope for track-focused performance, program managers also anticipated a broader demographic of customers who had not shopped Corvette when it was a front-engine car. The mid-engine layout screamed sophistication.

“Corvette is based on a different business model than the exotics, because they are going for a bigger market,” said Steven Cole Smith, special projects editor for Hagerty. Corvette has outperformed again with the ZR1. They are punching way above their weight with this car.”

Significantly, the Corvette eschews exotic, expensive, lightweight materials like a carbon-fiber chassis used by some of its peers to maintain the ZR1’s accessibility. At 3,800 pounds, the aluminum-chassis ZR1 is a thousand pounds heavier than, for example, the all-carbon Aston.

Chevy’s Bell said the scale of GM is key to the ZR1’s unique story.

“We do this car in some volume, which is pretty significant in this space,” he said. “When we went to the mid-engine, the aspiration grew, and we saw some new customers come into the Corvette family. The volume has helped us continue to invest in how far we can take it.”

In recent generations, the Bowling Green plant has pumped out 35,000 vehicles per year, and the C8 has consistently hit that mark since 2021, with the ZR1 model now coming online.

“We leverage the scale of this great company, General Motors, and everything we do with the brand Chevrolet allows us some things that are very efficient, very effective,” Bell said. “(We’ve got) a lot of variants of this car: Stingray, E-Ray, Z06, and now ZR1. “(In) Bowling Green, we learn from all of our facilities across the U.S.”

General Motors Co.'s sprawling manufacturing footprint brings with it a deep bench of efficient suppliers who help pump out over 2.5 million vehicles per year. With volume comes efficiency.

“It’s engineered into the car,” Reuss said. “Our supply base is really good. We get that relationship — that advantage — that's gone on for many years. They know what we're trying to do. They give us their best, we give it our best, and that's pretty magical.”

That includes a comfortable, state-of-the-art interior that wouldn’t be out of place in a luxury European sedan. Stitched leather thrones in multiple colors, including red, orange, and two-tone. Big digital screens that include high-tech features like a Performance Data Recorder, a camera mirror, and crisp graphics.

“That scale gives us permission to go after the ultimate in performance,” Bell said.

Similar features are found in other GM vehicles like the Silverado LT, High Country, and electric trucks, as well as Cadillacs. That interior grows more sophisticated for the ‘26 model year (ZR1 has a short run as a 2025 model before adopting 2026 upgrades).

“The 2026 model year has an all-new interior . . . that's even a step up from when we started (C8) five years ago,” Bell said. “The evolution is from learnings that we have across many platforms within our company.”

At the heart of Corvette models is an LT family of V-8 engines, from the pushrod, 6.2-liter LT2 in the base Stingray to the insane, overhead-cam, twin-turbo 5.5-liter mill in the ZR1. LT2 is an evolution of the pushrod engine that has powered millions of Chevy trucks over the years as well.

“Pulling this kind of horsepower out of a V-8 in a Corvette helps us in the truck world,” Bell said. “We are in a unique position.”

The ZR1 brings a race-developed, 5.5-liter engine — its sophisticated, high-revving, flat-plane crank design shared with Ferrari — that competes against the world’s best sports car brands week in and week out on tracks across the globe.

“It's a very proud moment (for) just the engine itself: 5.5-liter, flat-plane crank, twin-turbos,” Reuss said. “Those are the biggest (turbos) on a production car, period. Our front-engine cars were all supercharged, because we couldn't fit the turbos. This is... one of the big reasons we went to mid-engine.”

Hagerty’s Cole Smith credits GM manufacturing with ZR1’s otherworldly performance numbers: “The turbos have a lot to do with the ZR1 capability. They had to have a base engine that was capable of holding up to that kind of stress.”

In addition to competing with the C8.R race car in the IMSA Weathertech (at the Detroit Grand Prix this weekend) and World Endurance Championship (the 24 Hours of Le Mans runs next month) series, Chevy has been torching track lap records with the ZR1 across North America this year — at the hands of its own engineers.

“The engineers who set the track records are the ones who work on these cars day in and day out,” Bell smiled. “All the racing we do, we can transfer that skill set into manufacturing.”

It may not cost seven figures, but the $175,000 ZR1 (along with its $100k Z06 and E-Ray siblings) looks like a million bucks and is attracting high-end customers.  Bell says Corvette has responded with a more premium experience.

“The Bowling Green facility uses the best of the best of what we produce at GM, but we also ring in some of that hand-crafted culture as well,” he said. “For our upper-end customers, there’s a museum there, there’s (track-testing) at Spring Mountain (Nevada), so we bring that exclusivity to people who are going to spend this kind of money.”

Consulting firms are churning out more C-suite executives than ever. The shift away from corporate behemoths such as General Electric as proving grounds for CEOs comes amid increased globalization, the rise of service industries, and new technologies. Data tracking 4,300 global public companies shows that the biggest CEO factories today are McKinsey, Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) , and Swiss staffing firm Adecco Group. Big Four accounting firms, having built out their consulting capabilities, also rank among the top 10 CEO producers.