The move comes as video viewership continues to reshape podcasting. About 37% of people over age 12 watch video podcasts monthly, according to Edison Research. The update brings Apple Podcasts more in-line with its competitors Spotify, YouTube and now Netflix, which have increasingly leaned into video podcasting. "Twenty years ago, Apple helped take podcasting mainstream by adding podcasts to iTunes, and more than a decade ago, we introduced the dedicated Apple Podcasts app," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Services, in a statement. They can also use picture-in-picture mode and download video episodes for offline viewing. While Apple Podcasts has supported video through RSS since 2005, those feeds were kept separate from audio versions of the same show. The new update introduces support for HLS, or HTTP Live Streaming, a streaming protocol developed by Apple that enables adaptive video playback and greater controls within the app. The new HLS format also introduces dynamic video ad insertion. Creators who distribute through participating hosting providers and ad networks will be able to insert video ads, including host-read spots, into episodes. Apple said it will not charge creators or hosting providers to distribute content. However, it will charge participating ad networks an impression-based fee for delivering dynamic video ads through HLS. These launch podcast hosting partners include Acast, Amazon-owned ART19, Triton's Omny Studio and SiriusXM who will all be supporting HLS video. The announcement comes as competitors continue investing in podcast video. YouTube said last year it has more than 1 billion monthly active viewers of podcast content on its platform. Spotify has also expanded its video podcast offerings and said it paid more than $100 million to podcasters in the first quarter of last year. The streaming platform inked a deal with Spotify last year to bring video podcasts to Netflix and has begun investing in original video podcast programming, including "The Pete Davidson Show," which launched in January. Apple does not break out revenue specifically for Apple Podcasts, but its Services segment, which includes digital content and subscription businesses, generated $30 billion in revenue in its most recent quarter. In January, the company acquired Israeli artificial intelligence startup Q.ai for an undisclosed amount. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

On Friday, Paris' public prosecutor said it opened investigations into five companies that make the formula. The investigation concerns possibly contaminated infant nutrition products distributed by three of the world's largest dairy groups, Nestle, Danone, and privately-held Lactalis, as well as smaller brands Babybio and La Marque en Moins. The recalls were due to possible contamination of cereulide, a heat-stable toxin that can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea when consumed. While symptoms typically resolve within a day, it can lead to more severe complications. CNBC reached out to the companies mentioned for comment. In January, Nestle CEO Philipp Navratil said he was sorry about the worry and disruption this has caused parents and customers. "Let me reassure you that your safety and wellbeing is our highest priority," he said. In addition, the French health ministry is looking into three reported baby deaths in cases where consumption of infant formula affected by the recall was reported. On Dec. 10, it informed Dutch authorities, the European Commission and potentially impacted countries of potential risks, according to the company's timeline, which added it initiated recalls the same day of all batches produced: 25 products in 16 countries in Europe. In January, the Swiss company issued its first major public recall for brands SMA, Beba and Little Steps across Europe, and recalls by French peers Danone, the maker of best-selling Aptamil and Cow & Gate, and Lactalis followed. So far, there have been recalls in over 60 countries. The contamination source has been traced back to an ingredient supplier of arachidonic acid (ARA) oil, which is often added to baby formula, Nestle said. The fallout has grown over time because many different companies and multiple brands used this supplier. The supplier hasn't been officially named. It still urged parents and caregivers to check if the formula products they have at home were among those batches listed in the recalls. There hadn't previously been a harmonized standard because of its rarity, said Barclays analyst Warren Ackerman. Earlier this month, UK authorities said they had received at least 36 clinical reports of infants showing symptoms consistent with cereulide poisoning. Nestle's infant formula makes up about 5% of revenue, and the company has disclosed that recalled products represent only about 0.5% of revenue. "The larger 5% number is probably more relevant given the likely consumer confusion and brand equity risk," said Bernstein analyst Callum Elliott in January. "For Danone, infant formula is more important, comprising around 21% of group revenues by our estimates, and more than this in terms of profitability." Nestle and Danone are both slated to report earnings later this week, where investors hope to get a better picture of the financial impact of the recalls. As investors worry about the financial fallout and potential reputational damage, Nestle shares are up 1.7% year-to-date, while Danone stock has shed 5.5%. - CNBC's Charlotte Reed contributed to this report Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

From what I've seen, the people who get ahead the fastest know how to communicate in a way that truly gets people to listen. Here are five simple language swaps that can help you succeed, forge meaningful relationships, and demand more respect at work. Maybe you want to work from home, take a sabbatical, or get an extra week of vacation for your honeymoon. Because these are high-stakes situations, most people walk into the conversation radiating anxiety, cornering their opponent, or blurting out a closed-ended, yes-or-no question. But making an open-ended ask can take the pressure off both parties and invite a dialogue about a process, priority or norm. It makes you look thoughtful, rather than entitled. Genuine apologies are necessary at times, but over-apologizing often backfires. Research has found that habitual, unnecessary apologizing can erode how others perceive your competence and confidence. But it can also feel awkward not to acknowledge small mistakes, so I recommend replacing unnecessary apologies with gratitude. The word "but" often negates everything that comes before it. The "and" version of these examples doesn't minimize either statement. It allows two things to be true at once, promoting greater nuance and clarity. "I feel like" can come across as gentle, soft, and humble, which are all wonderful things to be. It frames your professional observations as personal emotions. Questions that begin with "why" can put people on the defensive. Even if unintended, "why" often implies judgment, asking someone to justify their choices or thinking. Instead, invite your conversation partner to walk you through their thought process, rather than demanding they explain themselves. Ultimately, when you make these shifts, the person you're talking to will feel more heard and respected — and will be more willing to have an honest conversation with you as a result. Want to improve your communication, confidence and success at work? Register now and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 20% off. Get Make It newsletters delivered to your inbox Learn more about the world of CNBC Make It

Two cofounders and at least eight other employees have announced their departures from Elon Musk's AI startup in the past few days, with the billionaire telling xAI's workforce in a Tuesday all-hands that the company was restructuring as it continues to grow. In a post on X, Musk wrote that xAI had been reorganized "to improve speed of execution." "This unfortunately required parting ways with some people," he wrote, adding that xAI was still "hiring aggressively." It comes after Musk announced that xAI would merge with his rocket company, SpaceX, in a deal the billionaire said would help the joint entity build a network of AI data centers in Earth's orbit. In the Tuesday all-hands, which was posted on X, Musk said the combined company would aim to build a "self-sustaining" city and a catapult, or mass driver, on the moon to launch AI data center satellites into space. That could be a major boost for xAI, which reportedly burned through billions of dollars last year. Since then, around half of the company's cofounders have left, and xAI has faced global backlash over sexual images of real people generated on X by Grok, the startup's AI chatbot. Here's everyone who has left xAI in the company's most recent exodus. Business Insider has contacted each of the following employees for comment. xAI cofounder Tony Wu announced his resignation from the company on February 9. In a post on X, the former Google researcher said it was time for his "next chapter" and thanked Musk for "the ride of a lifetime." Business Insider's Grace Kay previously reported that Wu began reporting directly to Musk last year and led xAI's reasoning efforts. Hang Gao, a member of technical staff, also announced in an X post on February 10 that he had left xAI. IMO, all AI labs are building the exact same thing, and it's boring. Kazemi joined xAI last year and, before that, worked at OpenAI. "Will be taking a few months to spend time with family & tinker with AI," he wrote in a post on X. Jaiswal joined xAI in September 2025, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, he was head of growth at Scale AI. Shayan Salehian said on February 7 that he was leaving after a seven-year stint across Twitter and X to build something new. "Working closely with Elon across X and xAI, I saw what happens when you refuse to accept impossible as an answer," he wrote on X. "Today is my last day at xAI, feeling very fortunate about the opportunity. It has been an amazing journey," he wrote in a brief departure post on X. Before xAI, Zhai was a research scientist at Google DeepMind. Member of technical staff Andrew Ma wrote in an X post on February 11 that he had left xAI this week. Ma worked on X's recommendation system and was "solely responsible" for writing a new version of the platform's user search algorithm, according to his LinkedIn. Radhakrishnan Venkataramani wrote in an X post on February 12 that he had left xAI this week. The Berkeley graduate, who joined Musk's AI startup last year, wrote on X that leaving xAI was "one of the hardest decisions" he had ever made.

China's rapid advancement in AI is threatening to shake up U.S. dominance in the market, with one analyst warning of a tech shock that is just getting started. Rory Green, TS Lombard's chief China economist and head of Asia research, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday that America's "perceived monopoly" on tech and AI has been broken by China. "I think the China tech shock is just getting started. China is moving up the value chain very rapidly... It's the first time in history that an emerging market economy is at the forefront of science and technology," Green said in a conversation with CNBC's Steve Sedgewick and Ben Boulos. China is pairing dominant-market level tech with emerging-market production costs, backed by its massive supply chain, Green said. Indeed, Beijing quietly launched a 60.06 billion yuan ($8.69 billion) national AI fund last year, and has an initiative called "AI+" which will see the tech integrated across its economy, industries, and society. China is quickly catching up to the U.S. in the AI arms race, developing highly advanced models powered by homegrown chips, particularly through massive Huawei chip clusters and abundant low-cost energy. While U.S. chip giant Nvidia is viewed as the gold standard for semiconductors used to train AI models, Huawei is narrowing the gap by deploying larger volumes of chips and leveraging cheaper power to scale compute. TS Lombard's Green explained that a "China tech sphere" could easily form, as the world's second-largest economy's low-cost tech offerings may be more attractive to developing economies. "China is a top trade partner for most of the world, particularly in emerging and frontier economies. Developing economies that don't have a national security issue with China have a choice between "low-cost China tech, Huawei, 5G batteries, solar panels, AI, probably some cheap RMB financing," or "high-cost American and European alternative," he said. "For these economies, I think the choice is fairly simple, and you could see easily a world where maybe most of the world's population is running on a Chinese tech stack in five to 10 years time," he added. Additionally, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, one of the world's leading AI labs, told CNBC in January that China's AI models might be just "a matter of months" behind U.S. and Western rivals and are closer to those capabilities than "maybe we thought one or two years ago." U.S. hyperscalers Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet recently announced capital expenditure of up to $700 billion on AI this year, which raised alarms about returns and caused $1 trillion to be wiped from the market caps of tech giants. Karim Moussalem, Selwood Asset Management's chief investment officer, told "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday that there's a lot of "nervousness around U.S. exceptionalism," especially after the sell-off in the U.S. software sector earlier this month. "When I think of the hyperscalers' capex, we're seeing a race that's on and a lot of money being spent, and more and more question marks around whether you know all that investment, all that capex, is going to result in meaningful return on investments," Moussalem said. But for the time being, there's a lot of capital being spent, actually a lot more than even what was expected a few months ago, with more and more question marks about the ROI," he added. — CNBC's Steve Sedgwick and Ben Boulos contributed to this report Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Every time Bryan publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. A handful of very wealthy people want to give your children free money. This July, the government will officially launch "Trump Accounts," a new investment savings account for children. For children born between 2025 and 2028, the federal government will provide a $1,000 seed contribution. Many of those individuals are "adopting" specific states, meaning their contributions are limited to children living in those states. The accounts can't be accessed for withdrawals until the child turns 18, at which point they can spend the money on major purchases like tuition or a down payment on a home. Here's who's pouring money into Trump Accounts, and which children are eligible. Dell CEO Michael Dell and his wife Susan have pledged to contribute $6.25 billion to the Trump Accounts of children across the country. Specifically, the Dells are contributing $250 to 25 million children, including those who are 10 years or younger and live in a ZIP code where the median income is $150,000 or less. "Together we can make possibility something that every child can count on," Michael Dell said in a December video announcing the contribution. Hedge fund manager Ray Dalio is "adopting" the state of Connecticut. At an early age, I was exposed to the stock market, and it changed my life." He's planning to contribute $250 to the Trump Accounts of all children under 5 years old in the Hoosier State, adding up to a figure that a spokesperson estimated to be in the "tens of millions" of dollars. He told Business Insider in December that he helped coordinate the Dells' massive $6.25 billion contribution, and that his phone was "blowing up" when the news broke. The details of Hamm's planned contributions have not yet been made public, and spokespeople for Continental Resources did not respond to requests for comment. Even Nicki Minaj says she's contributing to Trump Accounts. Minaj has indicated that the contributions will go to her fans, but it's not clear how much money she's pouring in. The New York Post reported in January that it could be "between $150,000 and $300,000," but that the number was still in flux. Minaj said on an episode of The Katie Miller Podcast that she became interested when she saw President Trump speaking about the accounts alongside Michael Dell. Like, I love this idea," Minaj said. "My big thing is financial literacy," she added. "You could teach a person everything in the world, but if they don't know how to manage money, if they don't know what the financial world really entails, then they'll get it and lose it."

Corporate resignations rarely make news, except at the highest levels. But in the last two years, a spate of X posts, Substack open letters, and public statements from prominent artificial intelligence researchers have created a new literary form — the AI resignation letter — with each addition becoming an event to be mined for meaning. This past week brought several additions to the annals of "Why I quit this incredibly valuable company working on bleeding-edge tech" letters, including from researchers at xAI and an op-ed in The New York Times from a departing OpenAI researcher. Perhaps the most unusual was by Mrinank Sharma, who was put in charge of Anthropic's Safeguards Research Team a year ago, and who announced his departure from what is often considered the more safety-minded of the leading AI startups. He posted a 778-word letter on X that was at times romantic and brooding — he quoted the poets Rainer Maria Rilke and Mary Oliver. Sharma noted that his final project at Anthropic was "on understanding how Al assistants could make us less human or distort our humanity" — a nod, perhaps, to the scourge of AI psychosis and other novel harms emerging from people overvaluing their relationships with chatbots. In the annals of AI resignations, Sharma's missive might be less dramatic than the boardroom coup that ousted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for five days in November 2023. It's less troubling than some of the other end-of-days warnings published by AI safety researchers who quit their posts believing that their employers weren't doing enough to mitigate the potential harms of artificial general intelligence, or AGI, a smarter-than-human intelligence that AI companies are racing to build. (Some AI experts question whether AGI is even achievable or what it might mean.) (Few, if any, public resignations seem to come from people on the product side.) There are pressures to ship without proper testing, established safeguards, or knowing what might happen when a system goes rogue. Many of the people who have publicly quit AI companies work in safety and "alignment," the field tasked with making sure that AI capabilities align with human needs and welfare. Many of them seem very optimistic about AI, and even AGI, but they worry that financial pressures are eating away at safeguards. Either they jump ship for another seven-, eight-, or nine-figure job at a competing AI startup, or they become civic-minded AI analysts and researchers at one of a growing number of AI think tanks. Every time Jacob publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! Stay connected to Jacob and get more of their work as it publishes. By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Announcing his departure from Anthropic to become OpenAI's Head of Preparedness earlier this month, Dylan Scandinaro wrote on LinkedIn, "AI is advancing rapidly. Daniel Kokotajlo, who resigned from OpenAI, said that OpenAI's systems "could be the best thing that has ever happened to humanity, but it could also be the worst if we don't proceed with care." Recently, xAI, where co-founder Elon Musk is notorious for tinkering with the proverbial dials of the Grok chatbot, has seen a half-dozen members of its founding team leave. With revenue paling compared to its massive and growing infrastructure costs, OpenAI recently announced that it would begin incorporating ads into ChatGPT. "ChatGPT users have generated an archive of human candor that has no precedent, in part because people believed they were talking to something that had no ulterior agenda," she wrote. But, she warned, OpenAI seemed prepared to leverage that "archive of human candor" — much as Facebook had done — to target ads and undermine user autonomy. On November 17, 2023, Altman was dramatically fired by the company's board because, it claimed, Altman was "not consistently candid in his communications with the board." On May 14, 2024, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever announced his resignation. Sutskever was replaced as head of OpenAI's superalignment team by John Schulman, another company co-founder. A few months later, Schulman left OpenAI for Anthropic. Six months later, he announced his move to Thinking Machines Lab, an AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, who had replaced Altman as OpenAI's interim CEO during his brief firing. The day after Sutskever left OpenAI, Jan Leike, who also helped head OpenAI's alignment work, announced on X that he had resigned. "OpenAI is shouldering an enormous responsibility on behalf of all of humanity," Leike wrote, but the company's "safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products." He thought that "OpenAI must become a safety-first AGI company." Less than two weeks later, Leike was hired by Anthropic. OpenAI and Antrhopic did not respond to requests for comment. At OpenAI, departing researchers have said that the experts concerned with alignment and safety have often been sidelined, pushed out, or scattered among other teams, leaving researchers with the sense that AI companies are sprinting to build an invention they won't be able to control. "In short, neither OpenAI nor any other frontier lab is ready, and the world is also not ready" for AGI, wrote Miles Brundage when he resigned from OpenAI's AGI readiness team in 2024. Yet he added that "working at OpenAI is one of the most impactful things that most people could hope to do" and did not directly criticize the company. In public pronouncements, top researchers gently chastise or occasionally denounce their employers for pursuing a potentially apocalyptic invention while also emphasizing the necessity of doing that research. Sometimes they offer a "cryptic warning" that leaves AI watchers scratching their heads. A few do seem genuinely alarmed at what's happening. When OpenAI safety researcher Steven Adler left the company in January 2025, he wrote that he was "pretty terrified by the pace of AI development" and wondered if it would wipe out humanity. Data center construction, resource consumption, mass surveillance, ICE deportations, weapons development, automation, labor disruption, the proliferation of slop, a crisis in education — these are the areas where many people see AI affecting their lives, sometimes for the worse, and the industry's pious resignees don't have much to say about it all. "Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old," wrote William Stafford in the poem that Mrinank Sharma shared. It can feel as if no single act of protest is enough, or, as Stafford writes in the next line: "Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding." Jacob Silverman is a contributing writer for Business Insider. Business Insider's Discourse stories provide perspectives on the day's most pressing issues, informed by analysis, reporting, and expertise.

Every time Jacob publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. After weighing her options, she decided to follow the advice of a mentor: go to "startup rehab" — in other words, take a full-time job. About four months later, she landed a product manager role at Meta in the company's Quest for Business virtual reality division. "There are ways you can be entrepreneurial," she said of working at Big Tech, "but it's very much not the same." Every time Jacob publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! Stay connected to Jacob and get more of their work as it publishes. By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Over the past year, I've interviewed more than a dozen workers who, like Isaacs, chose to quit their jobs at major employers — in some cases without another role lined up. While some eventually landed at another large company, others stepped away from the corporate world entirely — joining a smaller business, launching their own venture, pursuing a career pivot, or focusing on personal priorities like parenting. They've become outliers in an economy where workers are quitting at one of the lowest rates in the past decade — a trend driven by a hiring slowdown that's left some clinging to their jobs with few appealing alternatives. Those who have called it quits told me they did so for a mix of reasons: concerns about job security, shifts in workplace culture, entrepreneurial ambitions, or a desire for more meaningful work. In short, they wanted greater long-term agency over their careers. Isaacs shared how she decided to take the leap back into entrepreneurship — and offered advice for others facing a similar career crossroads. Business Insider is speaking with workers who've found themselves at a corporate crossroads — whether due to a layoff, resignation, job search, or shifting workplace expectations. After leaving her post-college startup, Isaacs took a month to reset. Eventually, she applied for a role at Meta and landed the job. She moved from the Berkeley area to San Francisco and started in May 2022 — about a year after graduation. So she started living well below her means, including living in a less expensive area, going to a basic gym, cooking at home, and avoiding shopping sprees. Isaacs also prepared for a potential return to entrepreneurship by spending about five hours a week angel investing, which involved scouting and backing startups. She said the experience helped her build a network in San Francisco's startup scene and spot gaps other entrepreneurs could exploit — insights that helped shape her own business ideas. The final phase of Isaacs' preparation was soaking up everything she could from her time at Meta, including transitioning to a product manager position at Instagram — one of Meta's subsidiaries — in 2024. She said the roles gave her knowledge and experience that entrepreneurship alone couldn't provide. "Traditional entrepreneurship was just flying by the edge of my seat and seeing what worked," she said. "But I needed that level of expertise to go farther in my career." "That really triggered this thought in my brain of, 'Is being a product manager at a Big Tech company what I want to do for the rest of my life?'" By mid-2025, Isaacs found herself thinking more and more about a startup idea in the consumer AI space — and struggling to focus on her job at Meta. She said she and her two co-founders are testing the product with users and plan to open a pre-seed funding round in the spring. Isaacs said she knows many people might hesitate to give up a Big Tech job. But she believes some underestimate their chances of finding a new role or building something themselves — and end up stuck in jobs they don't enjoy. "It's kind of like dating," she said, adding that if you anticipate a bad dating pool, "you're going to stay with your bad ex." Isaacs has a few pieces of advice for other aspiring entrepreneurs. Additionally, even if your end goal is to build a business, Isaacs said having experience at a big-name company can give you valuable credibility as an entrepreneur.

Taken from CNBC's Daily Open, our international markets newsletter — Subscribe today U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio provided comforting words for Europe on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference. "We want Europe to be strong," he said. "We believe that Europe must survive, because the two great wars of the last century serve, for us, as history's great reminder, that ultimately, our destiny is, and will always be, intertwined with yours." That's a stark contrast from U.S. Vice President JD Vance's criticism of European democracy during the previous year's security conference, and his observation then that a schism had emerged between the continent and America. Elsewhere, the U.S. consumer price index on Friday stateside also provided some balm. Consumer inflation for January rose 2.4% on a year-on-year basis, lower than the 2.7% in December, and returning to where it was after President Donald Trump fired off tariffs globally in April 2025. Core CPI came in at 2.5%, the lowest since April 2021. "This should be welcome news for markets, and the presumptive incoming Fed Chair Kevin Warsh," said Phil Blancato, Osaic chief market strategist. "This is only one month's worth of data, but if the trend continues it should pave a path for lower interest rates and reined in inflation." U.S. markets, however, on Friday made only tentative steps in either direction, perhaps still unsure of where to move amid uncertainty about the effects of AI on companies. U.S. markets will be closed Monday for Presidents' Day. — CNBC's Sean Conlon, Pia Singh and Jeff Cox contributed to this report. Fourth-quarter gross domestic product rose 0.1% from the previous three months, missing expectations of a 0.4% expansion in a Reuters poll of economists. However, it reverses the third quarter's 0.7% contraction, meaning that Japan's economy avoided a technical recession. Cryptocurrency payments to suspected human trafficking syndicates surged 85% in 2025, with hundreds of millions of transactions traced on public blockchains, according to a Chainalysis report. TikTok's U.S. joint venture sees it user base stabilize. Early narratives of a mass user exodus prompted by service outages and censorship concerns now appear overstated, according to new figures. Asia-Pacific markets were mostly closed on Monday for the Lunar New Year holiday. [PRO] The U.S. dollar is losing its safe-haven status because of risks in AI stocks, said George Saravelos, global head of FX research at Deutsche Bank. Markets brace for more AI noise and 'scare trading' Headliners include Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Microsoft's Brad Smith, Mistral AI co-Founder Arthur Mensch and Meta's Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

European markets closed higher on Monday, as investors digested the key points from this year's Munich Security Conference. The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up 0.1% by market close, with major bourses and most sectors in the region in positive territory. Trading of Dassault Systemes shares were briefly halted Monday after the company fell sharply. The pause came as broker AlphaValue cut its rating from Buy to Reduce amid renewed concerns over AI monetization and a "worrying loss of momentum" at the French software group. Geopolitics and defense returned to the spotlight as investors focused on this year's Munich Security Conference. The event saw several European leaders and policymakers reiterate the need for greater defense spending to accelerate the continent's strategic autonomy, with discussions of a common nuclear shield. Despite U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio striking a markedly more conciliatory tone towards European allies in his speech Saturday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz acknowledged a "deep divide" in the transatlantic partnership, warning that the post-World War Two rules-based order "no longer exists." Also speaking at the MSC, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country would be ready to join the EU by 2027, and said a date for accession should be included in any peace agreement with Russia. Meanwhile, U.K. lender NatWest Group gained 4.7% as it began a £750 million ($1.02 billion) share buyback program on Monday. Rio Tinto lost 1% after the multinational mining company suspended work at its Simandou iron-ore mine in Guinea following a fatality at the SimFer project late Sunday. Ahead of its latest earnings update Tuesday, BHP Group fell 0.7%, while Glencore, which had been set to merge with Rio Tinto until the tie-up was abandoned earlier this month, also lost ground, falling over 0.3%. Fresnillo retreated 1%, and Anglo American was 0.2% lower. The FTSE Industrial Metals and Mining Index was last seen down nearly 0.6%. In corporate earnings, Airbus, Nestlé and Renault are among the names reporting results later this week. Trading was thin elsewhere in the region, as markets in China, South Korea and Taiwan were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday. Stock markets in the U.S., meanwhile, are closed on Monday for Presidents' Day. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Chinese tech giant ByteDance has said it will strengthen safeguards on a new artificial intelligence video-making tool, following complaints of copyright theft from entertainment giants. The tool, Seedance 2.0, enables users to create realistic videos based on text prompts. However, viral videos shared online appear to show copyrighted characters and celebrity likenesses, raising intellectual property concerns in the U.S. "ByteDance respects intellectual property rights and we have heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0," a company spokesperson said in a statement shared with CNBC. "We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users," the spokesperson added. ByteDance's response comes after receiving backlash and stern warnings from Hollywood groups like the Motion Picture Association (MPA), a trade association representing major Hollywood studios including Netflix, Paramount Skydance, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros. The group issued a forceful public statement at the end of last week demanding that ByteDance immediately cease what it called "infringing activity." "In a single day, the Chinese AI service Seedance 2.0 has engaged in unauthorized use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale," said MPA chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin in the statement. "By launching a service that operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs." According to a report from Axios, Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter Friday to ByteDance, accusing the company of distributing and reproducing its intellectual property through the new AI tool without permission. The legal notice alleged that ByteDance had effectively pre-packaged Seedance with a pirated library of copyrighted characters, portraying them as if they were public-domain clip art," the report added. Disney has also sent cease-and-desist letters to AI companies in the past. While trying to protect its intellectual property, Disney has signed a licensing deal with and invested in OpenAI. Paramount Skydance has also sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance, making similar accusations, Variety reported over the weekend. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Every time Lakshmi publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Anthropic famously employs a Scottish philosopher named Amanda Askell. She is essentially teaching it to be cool and good. Elon Musk, however, doesn't think she's qualified. "Those without children lack a stake in the future," Musk posted on X in response to a profile of Askell published by The Wall Street Journal. The Journal profile does not say whether Askell has kids. Musk is known for promoting a brand of pronatalism that's become popular among Silicon Valley elites. "I think it depends on how much you care about people in general vs. your own kin," Askell wrote. "I think caring about your children can make you feel invested in the future in a new and very profound way, and I do understand people wanting to convey that," she added. "I'm too right wing for the left and I'm too left wing for the right," she said. "I'm too into humanities for those in tech and I'm too into tech for those in the humanities.