Every time Grace 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. The exodus of cofounders from Elon Musk's AI startup continues. Zihang Dai left xAI earlier this week, according to people familiar with the matter. Meanwhile, Guodong Zhang has told people he plans to leave in the coming days, insiders said. After Dai and Zhang depart, only two of the 11 people who started the company with Musk in 2023 — Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen — will remain. He was given a larger role at xAI earlier this year, shortly before Wu left the company, Business Insider previously reported. On Wednesday, Musk told the Abundance Conference that "Grok is currently behind in coding." "The reason I was late for this was that I was just in a giant sort of all-hands on coding, going through all the things that need to happen to essentially exceed our competitors on coding, which I think we'll do," he said. Dai was a member of technical staff at the company. Reached by phone, Zhang and Dai declined to comment. The company has shed dozens of employees since January. Musk announced he reorganized xAI last month and parted ways with some staffers as a result. Some of the cuts have impacted workers on the company's AI white collar project, Macrohard, and Grok Imagine, its AI image and video generator, Business Insider previously reported. And actually, when this happens, there's some people who are better suited for the early stages of a company and less suited for the later stages," Musk said during the February all-hands event, which was later posted on X. The reorganization took place shortly after two of Musk's direct reports, Wu and Ba, left the company and xAI was acquired by Musk's rocket company, SpaceX. The company is reportedly gearing up for an initial public offering this year that could value SpaceX at $1.5 trillion. Do you work for xAI or have a tip?

Every time Brent D. Griffiths 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. Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes spelled out three categories of workers the company wanted to retain in its announcement that it was cutting 1,600 jobs, or roughly 10% of its global workforce. "Guided by company-wide principles and a disparate impact analysis, we made some structural org changes and focused on retaining Atlassians with the skills to help us thrive as an AI-first company — this included strong performers, graduates, and Atlassians with transferable skills," Cannon-Brookes wrote in a message to employees that is publicly available. While it's unsurprising that high performers or those with transferable skills were highlighted as categories spared, retaining graduates runs counter to a narrative that's gained steam in the last year. It's no secret that recent graduates are facing a tough overall job market. Studies have shown how these younger workers may be particularly exposed as AI tools get increasingly capable of doing tasks that can often fall to entry-level workers. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has repeatedly predicted that AI will wipe out up to half of entry-level white-collar jobs over the next 1 to 5 years. He also said that the company would have more software engineers on staff in five years, not fewer. A representative of Atlassian told Business Insider at the time that the company hired 95 new grads in its February 2025 intake and has hired 108 grads to start in February 2026. In his letter, Cannon-Brookes didn't expand on why the company was focused on retaining graduates amid the cuts. It could be that the company views them as more likely to be AI native, or that it can get more out of them thanks to AI tools.

The Senate on Thursday passed the largest housing affordability bill in 30 years, including a ban on investors from buying single-family homes, with a 89-10 vote. But the bill faces an upward battle in the House, which passed its own bipartisan legislation in February. House GOP leaders have already said the measure will need to be negotiated, suggesting they will not take up the Senate-passed bill. House Minority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., earlier this week told fellow House Republicans in a closed-door meeting that the measure is likely to bog down over differences between the two chambers' versions. One of the biggest issues is a ban on investors and companies from buying single-family homes if they already own 350 or more. Companies that add to the housing supply through building or serious renovations would be able to own more homes, but would need to sell those homes after no more than seven years. Numerous industry groups, including the National Association of Home Builders, Mortgage Bankers Association and National Housing Conference said in a position statement that the seven-year limit would eliminate production of build-to-rent housing and "would take hundreds of thousands of housing units off the market over the next decade, many of which would serve lower- and middle-income households." Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., supported adding the institutional investing homeownership limit and said it would protect consumers. "But there's a point of principle here, and that is that private equity cannot come in and buy up all of the housing supply in America. That view was not universally shared, however. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who voted against the bill, said the 350 homes cap is "bananas" and would ultimately result in a ban on rental housing. Schatz, like Warren, has a liberal voting record. "I don't think people are clocking how bad this is going to be on the supply side," he said, adding that it will "screw up" the single family and duplex rental market. We want to hear from you. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Palantir is still using Anthropic's Claude as the artificial intelligence startup's clash with the Pentagon plays out, CEO Alex Karp told CNBC Thursday. "The Department of War is planning to phase out Anthropic; currently, it's not phased out," Karp told CNBC's Seema Mody at Palantir's AIPcon 9 in Maryland. "Our products are integrated with Anthropic, and in the future, it will probably be integrated with other large language models." The Department of Defense officially designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk last week, but is still using Claude models to support the war in Iran, as CNBC previously reported. Anthropic and Palantir partnered with Amazon Web Services to support the DOD in 2024. Other defense tech companies have told employees to stop using Claude as the clash plays out, including Lockheed Martin. Defense Department Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael told CNBC Thursday that it would take time for the government to transition away from Anthropic's models. "You can't just rip out a system that's deeply embedded overnight," Michael told CNBC's "Squawk Box." At the end of February, President Donald Trump lashed out at Anthropic in a post on Truth Social, calling its staff "leftwing nut jobs." In the post, Trump said federal agencies will have a six-month period to phase out the company's products. An internal Pentagon memo sent by Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davies last week said use of Anthropic's tools may continue beyond the six-month period if deemed critical to national security. The memo, first reported Tuesday by CBS News, told senior leadership that exemptions will be considered for "mission-critical activities," in rare circumstances where "no viable alternative exists." "But otherwise, six months is the plan." We want to hear from you. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said Thursday that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz maritime passage should be continued as a "tool to pressure the enemy," in his first public statement since being appointed. Khamenei also said all U.S. military bases in the Middle East should close immediately and "those bases will be attacked," in televised comments translated by Reuters. Oil prices extended gains following the statement, read out by a state TV broadcaster. Iran warned on Wednesday that the price per barrel could climb to $200. It's Khamenei's first public comments since being appointed as Iran's supreme leader on March 9 after the assassination of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in U.S.-Israeli air strikes which began in late February. "Iran will not refrain from avenging the blood of its martyrs," Khamenei said, calling for unity among the Iranian people. Khamenei, 56, is seen as more hard-line and conservative than his father, although he kept a low profile in Iran before he was elected to succeed him as supreme leader. U.S. President Donald Trump expressed "disappointment" in his selection by Iranian senior clerics, telling Fox News, "I don't believe he can live in peace." Despite Trump's comments, it's unclear whether the White House is aiming for regime change in Tehran as one of its main objectives in its military operation. Experts have said that airstrikes alone are unlikely to be enough to unseat Iran's leadership. There are no signs that the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran's critical and military infrastructure are nearing a conclusion, with air and sea attacks intensifying this week. Iran has also stepped up its retaliatory assaults this week, attacking tankers in or near the Strait of Hormuz. Khamenei said Thursday that Iran will seek compensation from enemies "or destroy their assets accordingly." Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Every time Robert 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. It's also been building during a time of war, which the startup's 35-year-old cofounder and CEO, Nati Hazut, told Business Insider gives Israel's tech sector a sense of "resilience." Since the outbreak of the war, Israel has been hit by retaliatory Iranian strikes, which for some businesses has meant taking cover in bomb shelters. Every time Robert publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! Stay connected to Robert 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. "Living without it would be better, and this is what we are all wishing for," Hazut added. Bold has developed AI agents to install on enterprise devices — such as laptops — that are a potential entry point for cyber threats. Hazut says that "AI fundamentally changed" how enterprises think about endpoints and the risks associated with them. Once installed, Bold's AI agent monitors for unusual activity on that device, such as how a user is interacting with apps and data. Hazut, who previously founded two other cybersecurity ventures, cofounded Bold with Hadar Krasner and Omri Mallis. Hazut said the startup is particularly focused on highly regulated industries. "One of the biggest challenges with endpoint security is protecting users without slowing them down," said Jeff Simon, CISO at Shutterfly. "As AI becomes part of daily workflows, Bold helps us apply security in a way that's effective but unobtrusive, so teams can keep moving fast without creating new risks." Bold plans to use the $40 million in funding to advance its go-to-market strategy and scale globally, with a focus on the US. Hazut said that Bold began the fundraising process before the war with Iran broke out, but that investors are typically understanding when regional conflicts flare up, and instead focused on the company and its technology. "I feel like the market is kind of like used to us, and it's kind of agnostic to the situation," Hazut said.

Like many visitors to Japan, my vocabulary consists of pleasantries, menu items, and apologies, which is hardly the skill you need when checking in for a full medical workup. Although I'd been to Japan many times before, the country has long fascinated me with its longevity. It consistently ranks among places where people live the longest, and although many factors contribute, its cultural embrace of preventive medicine stands out. On this trip, I was determined to experience that system from the inside. I chose NTT Tokyo in Shinagawa, one of many medical centers that accommodates international patients. Within two days, I had a confirmed appointment. The type of checkup I scheduled costs about $1,800 and is known in Japan as a "ningen dock." The phrase loosely translates to "human dock," borrowing the nautical image of pulling a ship from the water so its structure can be inspected before it returns to sea. When I arrived at the clinic, I searched for English signs while the antiseptic air stirred a subtle flicker of nerves. My nerves faded when the elevator doors opened. I pulled the sleeves toward my wrists and watched them stop short, a reminder that I was an American-sized body navigating a Japanese system. Over the next four hours, I moved through a comprehensive preventive medical checkup that, in the US, would typically require months of scheduling, referrals, and coordination. With her help, the visit unfolded smoothly as a clearly guided process. The pace was not rushed, yet nothing stalled. My morning began with bloodwork and urinalysis, followed by measurements that included height, weight, vision, hearing, grip strength, lung capacity, and blood pressure. Small gestures, like technicians bowing before explaining each test, created a sense of ease and reflected a process refined through years of repetition. At the end of the testing sequence, I immediately met with a physician to review my lab results. This was incredibly useful and turned out to be one of the biggest differences from the American system — normally, I'd wait days or weeks to get lab results through a portal or follow-up appointment. While reviewing the results of my exams and tests, the physician emphasized that no single checkup is definitive and that the real value lies in building a dataset over time. Even so, a few findings gave me clear insight into habits worth adjusting, which made the experience genuinely useful. A similar collection of tests in the United States can easily cost more than $10,000, depending on insurance coverage and billing practices. More important than the price is the simplicity and efficiency of this process — everything took place in one building over a single morning. In the United States, health information trickles in over time: a lab result here, an imaging report later, maybe a conversation at the next appointment. That morning, everything unfolded in practical succession: bloodwork, scans, consultation. I walked out with a clear sense of what was worth paying attention to and which habits were serving me well. It reminded me that longevity is not built through dramatic medical moments. It develops through systems that help you see your health clearly and make adjustments before problems appear. Just one morning inside a Tokyo hospital showed me how a culture can make that kind of maintenance feel routine.

Every time Amanda 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. In recent years, the premier sporting event has become as much about fashion and status as it is about sports. People attend in light fabrics, neutral colors, and athleticwear — often with a quiet-luxury twist. Business Insider has been on the ground. Here are the best and most expensive things we've seen. He also wore khaki pants from Zara, brown boots, a baseball cap, and Off-White sunglasses. Sogol Akbary, from Los Angeles, was at the BNP Paribas Open in a cream-colored outfit comprised of high-end pieces. Her cream-colored vest was from Dissh, an Australian fashion brand, while her cropped pants came from Agolde. She also wore a green baseball cap, Baleen sunglasses, $585 leather ballet flats from Le Monde Béryl, and an assortment of metallic jewelry, which included a diamond tennis necklace and matching earrings. Isis Anderson traveled to the tennis event from Connecticut and wore athletic attire upon arrival. Anderson also wore Adidas sneakers with ankle-length socks, thick sunglasses, and statement gold jewelry. While they both looked sharp in eye-catching outfits with bold prints, their accessories really stole the show. Elijah wore a Datejust 41 timepiece with a gold face and thick band, while Lindsay wore a more delicate version of the watch with diamonds around the face. Krista Banuelos traveled from Texas to attend the tennis event in California. She told Business Insider that the most expensive piece of her outfit sat across her eyes: Prada PR 16WS sunglasses. Nicholas Graves, an attendee from the San Francisco Bay Area, attended the BNP Paribas Open in an understated outfit. It included a vintage Ralph Lauren shirt, Uniqlo shorts, and New Balance sneakers. His bracelet and watch, though, were designed by the Los Angeles designer brand Chrome Hearts. Both were silver and appeared to have crystal detailing. One person walked into the tennis event wearing straight-leg jeans, brown loafers, and a green striped blouse.

Defense Department CTO Emil Michael on Thursday said Anthropic's Claude artificial intelligence models would "pollute" the agency's supply chain because they have "a different policy preference" that is baked in. "We can't have a company that has a different policy preference that is baked into the model through its constitution, its soul, its policy preferences, pollute the supply chain so our warfighters are getting ineffective weapons, ineffective body armor, ineffective protection," Michael told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "That's really where the supply chain risk designation came from." Anthropic is the first American company to publicly be labeled a supply chain risk, an extraordinary move that's historically been reserved for foreign adversaries. The designation will require defense contractors and vendors to certify that they don't use Claude in their work with the Pentagon. Michael's comments on Thursday are the clearest explanation the DOD has offered about why it believes Anthropic is a supply chain risk. "This is not meant to be punitive," Michael said Thursday. Michael also dismissed Anthropic's claim that the government has actively reached out to companies and told them them not to use Anthropic, calling the notion "rumors." Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of researchers and executives who defected from OpenAI. The company is best known for its family of Claude models, and it's had early success selling into large enterprises, including the DOD. The startup has drafted and published a "constitution" that it uses to help train its mainline, general-access Claude models. Anthropic said the constitution plays a "crucial role" in this process, and that its content "directly shapes Claude's behavior," according to its website. Anthropic shared the most recent version of Claude's constitution in January. "In it, we explain what we think it means for Claude to be helpful while remaining broadly safe, ethical, and compliant with our guidelines," Anthropic said in a blog post. Even after Anthropic was blacklisted, the company's models have been used to support the U.S. military operation in Iran, as CNBC previously reported. Palantir CEO Alex Karp told CNBC on Thursday his company, which is a major defense contractor, is still using Claude. Michael said it will take time to transition to another vendor, and that the DOD can't "just rip out" Anthropic's technology overnight. He said the agency has a transition plan. "This is not just Outlook where you could delete it from your desktop," Michael said. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

The new button called "Ask Maps" will feature a chatbot that allows users to ask complex questions outside of the typical navigation topics, Miriam Daniel, a vice president at Google Maps, said in a blog post Thursday. Users can now ask questions like, "My phone is dying — where can I charge it without having to wait in a long line for coffee?" or "Is there a public tennis court with lights on that I can play at tonight?" The results are personalized based on prior searches and saved trips in Google Maps, "making it easy to turn plans into action," the company said. "By bringing together the world's freshest map with our most capable Gemini models, we're transforming exploration into a simple conversation and making driving more intuitive than ever with our biggest navigation upgrade in over a decade." Google is adding more AI to its maps service as part of a broader effort to differentiate Gemini from potential competition and to keep users on its products for longer. With more than 2 billion monthly users, Google Maps, which turned 20 last year, is the world's top navigation app. Ask Maps starts rolling out Thursday in the U.S. and India on Android and Apple's iOS, with desktop coming soon, the company said. "Right now, we are very focused on launching this for our users and providing a great experience," said Andrew Duchi, a director of product management at Google. Google Maps makes money primarily by selling advertising and promoted placements to businesses. It also charges companies for access to its Maps APIs and location data. Google doesn't break out revenue from maps, which has historically been one of the search giant's most under-monetized products, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak told CNBC. The unit has been trying to increase revenue, including by licensing new sets of mapping data for companies to use as they build products around renewable energy. WATCH: Agentic AI deployment and research constrained by memory chip shortage Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

The U.S. decision to launch a slew of new investigations into key trading partners has raised eyebrows among analysts, who question both the timing and objectives of the probes. The investigations, targeting China, Mexico, the EU and more than a dozen other economies, are being carried out under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Here's CNBC's brief guide to Section 301s — what they are, why the White House has resorted to using them, and what President Donald Trump's administration hopes to achieve. Put simply, Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 enables the investigation of perceived unfair trading practices to determine whether "the acts, policies, or practices of a foreign country are unreasonable or discriminatory and burden or restrict U.S. The Office of the United States Trade Representative's (USTR) Jamieson Greer announced a series of new investigations on Wednesday targeting 16 trading partners, ranging from Singapore and Switzerland, to India and Norway. Section 301 investigations are not new, with several probes into Brazil and China ongoing. The first Trump administration investigated foreign trade practices under Section 301 six times, with two probes into China and the EU resulting in the imposition of tariffs. Former President Joe Biden's administration also carried out Section 301 probes. The latest investigations will examine whether these acts, policies, or practices burden or restrict U.S. commerce, and what action, if any, should be taken. The trade agency could also withdraw or suspend trade agreement concessions, or reach deals with the economies in question if they agree "to either cease the conduct in question or compensate the U.S.," USTR said. Retaliatory action should "affect goods or services of the foreign country in an amount that is equivalent in value to the burden or restriction being imposed by that country on" U.S. commerce, it added. That left the administration scrabbling for other ways to reimpose duties that were struck down. The White House initially responded to the Supreme Court's ruling by imposing a temporary 10% "universal" tariff (and threatening a higher 15% levy, which could be implemented soon) on all imported goods by using Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. These tariffs are only temporary, however, and Trump has made no secret of wanting to find a way to restore tariffs that were disallowed. The latest Section 301 investigations relate specifically to "structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors", amid claims that rival economies are "dumping" excess production on U.S. markets and threatening domestic manufacturers. USTR noted Wednesday that such practices pose a "serious challenge" to Trump's reindustrialization efforts and make it harder "to re-shore critical supply chains and create good-paying jobs for American workers." "The United States will no longer sacrifice its industrial base to other countries that may be exporting their problems with excess capacity and production to us," Greer said Wednesday The USTR will hold a public hearing covering each investigated economy starting on May 5. "After all of that, the USTR, we will have our findings and our analysis, and we will propose, if necessary, a responsive action," Greer said. "Responsive action can take a number of forms. Greer is due to announce on Thursday another Section 301 probe investigating imported goods made using forced labor. Using Section 301 is seen as an overt attempt to resurrect Trump's global tariffs strategy, which is currently subject to time restrictions, with temporary duties due to expire in July. You would think that the U.S. administration has got its hands full right now, but apparently not, " John Woods, Asia chief investment officer at Lombard Odier, told CNBC on Thursday. Section 301 "will be essentially a proxy for the trade tariffs that hitherto were imposed but subsequently blocked by the Supreme Court," he said, adding that the U.S. would use the investigations as leverage for further negotiations over trade deals. Goldman Sachs' Tim Moe said it's no surprise that the Trump administration is resorting to using Section 122 and Section 301s to target trade partners after the Supreme Court decison. "It should not be a total surprise that this has been announced. The timing, of course, is always unexpected, but I think it should not be a total surprise. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Subscribe here to receive future editions in your inbox. For those keeping track of layoff notices with AI mentions, add Atlassian to your list. The software company yesterday said it is cutting 10% of its workforce, in part "to self-fund further investment in AI." The move did little to help oil prices, though: Crude prices rose about 5% overnight, with Brent crude briefly hitting the $100 per barrel mark. Consumer prices in February rose 0.3% month over month and 2.4% from a year ago, in line with economists' expectations, according to the consumer price index released yesterday. Neither the headline nor core annual inflation rates budged last month — a sign that while inflation remains above the Federal Reserve's target, it's also not getting worse. Wednesday's CPI report didn't appear to move the stock market, as traders focused instead on oil prices. As Joe Seydl, senior markets economist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, put it: The report is "a bit stale at this point." In an effort to replace the broad tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court last month, the Trump administration is launching new trade investigations into several U.S. trade partners. The probes will be conducted under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the U.S. to enact tariffs on goods from countries found to have participated in unfair trade practices. The list of trading partners facing these new investigations includes Mexico, China, the EU, Japan, India and Vietnam. That's about 12% lower than the same time in 2025, a reflection of how increased tariff collections have boosted government revenue growth. CNBC's Morning Squawk recaps the biggest stories investors should know before the stock market opens, every weekday morning. Google is selling a partial stake in its fiber unit, GFiber, the company said yesterday. The business will combine with Astound Broadband and become an independent provider, in which Google will still have a minority stake. Launched in 2010, GFiber has been one of Google's non-core assets in its "Other Bets" segment, which also houses Waymo and Isomorphic Labs. The fiber unit initially aimed to build ultra-fast fiber-optic broadband networks in the U.S., but planned expansions have since been canceled as Google concentrated its focus on select markets. It's not just drivers who could be in for some sticker shock thanks to rising oil prices. As CNBC's Leslie Josephs reports, flyers will also see higher prices at the ticket counter. Several global airlines have already said they are raising fares to cover increasing fuel costs, and United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby indicated his carrier will likely follow suit. Travel demand is staying strong, according to senior airline executives, meaning carriers could end up with more pricing power. Transportation Security Administration agents, meanwhile, are set to miss their first full paychecks this week. Lawmakers failed to reach an agreement yesterday to end the now weeks-long Department of Homeland Security shutdown. Tech companies such as Microsoft have made billion-dollar investments in AI infrastructure projects in the Middle East. Now, those buildout plans are facing uncertainty as data centers become targets in the Iran war. — CNBC's Spencer Kimball, Lee Ying Shan, Sam Meredith, Chloe Taylor, Matt Peterson, Pia Singh, Jeff Cox, Brandon Gomez, Greg Iacurci, Dan Mangan, Jennifer Elias, Leslie Josephs, Garrett Downs and Kai Nicol-Schwarz contributed to this report. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

The U.S. Navy is not ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC in an interview Thursday. All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran's offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities." Wright said it is likely that the Navy will be in a position to escort tankers by the end of this month. "I'll be over at the Pentagon later today — that is what the military is working on," the Energy secretary told CNBC's "Squawk Box." Brent oil prices, the international benchmark, touched $100 per barrel earlier Thursday as attacks on commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf continue this week. Brent was last trading about 7% higher at $98.43. Wright's comments come after a post on his social media account wrongly claimed on Tuesday that the Navy had escorted a tanker through the strait. The post was quickly deleted from his account, but it sent oil prices plunging more than 17% at their lows Tuesday. President Donald Trump promised on March 3 that "the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible." Tanker traffic through the strait remains at a standstill as ship owners fear attacks by Iran. The closure of the strait has triggered the largest oil supply disruption in history, according to analyses from consulting firms Rapidan Energy and Wood Mackenzie. About 20% of global petroleum consumption passed through the narrow waterway before the war. More than 30 countries agreed Wednesday to inject 400 million barrels of oil from their stockpiles into the market in an effort to address the massive disruption. The U.S. will release 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of that effort. It remains unclear how long the war will last and when oil and gas flows through the strait will return to normal. "This is an operation that will take weeks, not months," Wright told CNBC. We want to hear from you. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.

Dick's Sporting Goods said Thursday it saw a better-than-expected holiday quarter, but the retailer issued weak profit guidance for the year ahead as its acquisition of Foot Locker continues to weigh on its bottom line. The company is expecting fiscal 2026 adjusted earnings per share to be between $13.50 and $14.50, weaker than the $14.67 analysts had expected, according to LSEG. Dick's said it expects Foot Locker to get back to both profit and sales growth during the year, but it's still doing the costly work of clearing through stale inventory and closing unproductive stores that it acquired during the merger last year. The company expects those efforts, along with other expenses associated with the deal, to cost between $500 million and $750 million. It said around $390 million of those costs were recorded in fiscal 2025, with more expected in the current fiscal year. In an interview with CNBC's Sara Eisen, Executive Chairman Ed Stack said the company is "basically done" with its efforts to rightsize the Foot Locker business. "In retail you're never really done cleaning out the garage," said Stack. "Anything else going forward is normal course of business." Here's how the company did in its fiscal fourth quarter compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: Dick's posted net income of $128.3 million, or $1.41 per share, a 57% decline from $299.97 million, or $3.62 per share, a year earlier. Six months ago, Dick's acquired Foot Locker in a $2.5 billion deal, and the combined entity is now one of the largest distributors of products from key athletic brands like Nike, Adidas and New Balance. The merger gave Dick's an in with a new type of customer, allowed it to expand its international presence and gave it more negotiating power with brands at a time when athleticwear companies are less reliant on wholesalers. While the acquisition led to a 60% increase in sales during the fiscal fourth quarter, it also saddled Dick's with a business that's underperformed for years and earns most of its revenue from a sprawling store footprint heavily concentrated in malls. Since acquiring the business, Dick's has worked to close poor performing stores. It's started a pilot program with 11 Foot Locker stores dubbed "Fast Break" that'll test changes in products and the in-store presentation. Before the acquisition, Foot Locker's former CEO, Mary Dillon, had been leading an aggressive store transformation strategy that sought to move shops to off-mall locations and renovate existing doors with a refreshed concept. It's unclear if Fast Break will be different from the strategy Foot Locker already had underway. Dick's said it expects to see an inflection in Foot Locker's comparable sales and profitability beginning with the back-to-school shopping season. For the full year, it expects Foot Locker comparable sales to grow between 1% and 3%. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Every time Daniel 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. Blue Owl Capital is doubling down on artificial intelligence infrastructure investments — including loans to two more data centers, Business Insider has learned. Blue Owl, based in New York City, recently agreed to provide $240 million of financing for a data center in Minneapolis that was purchased by investors Cloud Capital and Arcapita Group, according to two people with knowledge of the transaction. The company plans to both invest in and lend to a recently announced large data center development in Wichita Falls, Texas, being built by the Dallas-based firm Skybox Datacenters, according to a person with knowledge of the structure of that project. Blue Owl's role as a lender in that development hasn't previously been public. Every time Daniel publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! Stay connected to Daniel 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. In February, the firm disclosed that it holds a $500 million loan connected to a data center being built in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for the AI cloud provider CoreWeave. Analysts said they see the firm's growing focus on debt as a way for it to broaden its exposure to lucrative digital assets. "They are in a position to be able to evaluate the efficacy of any deal, and they are definitely smart credit investors," Glenn Schorr, a research analyst at Evercore ISI who covers Blue Owl, said of the company's data center lending. AI models have made rapid strides, enabling users to build sophisticated applications with simple prompts, stoking fears that software businesses could be upended. Blue Owl executives have said the firm plans to dramatically grow its data center portfolio. Much of that activity has focused on acquiring ownership stakes in deals and development projects. The company, through the data center platform it owns, Stack Infrastructure, is building large-scale data facilities in Texas and New Mexico, and recently announced it would develop a $12 billion campus for Amazon in Louisiana. A person involved in the sale of a data center development land site outside of Birmingham, Alabama, told Business Insider that Blue Owl has expressed interest in acquiring the property. In the fourth quarter, Blue Owl closed a $1.7 billion fundraise for a new private wealth-focused vehicle called Blue Owl Digital Infrastructure Trust that will acquire data centers. Last May, the company announced that it had separately raised its third digital infrastructure fund, with $7 billion of capital, almost double its initial target. On its fourth-quarter earnings call, the company's co-CEO Marc Lipschultz said another digital infrastructure fund would be raised this year. "You saw the great success we had in raising our latest Digital Infrastructure Fund III, which we already are heavily invested, so we'll be back this year with Digital Infrastructure Fund IV," Lipschultz said, according to a transcript of the call from AlphaSense. Blue Owl Technology Income Corporation, a roughly $3.5 billion fund, received redemptions totaling 15.6% of its net asset value — more than three times the fund's quarterly withdrawal limit of 5%. The retreat among investors from private credit has reached beyond Blue Owl. Blackstone reported that a private credit fund saw withdrawal requests totaling 7.9% in the first quarter. "We're in the cycle of upcoming elevated redemptions for all of the BDCs," said Michael Covello, a managing director at Stanger, referring to business development companies, a structure used by many private credit funds.

It's a bifurcated time in the American economy. Other high earners are doing well: They're booking increasingly snazzy premium seats on airplanes and spending thousands on their pets' grooming. Meanwhile, America's lower- and middle-income earners are cutting back on their economy airplane seats, buying cheaper groceries, and getting worried about maxing out their credit cards. For the past few years, and in a variety of ways, the country has been sliding into what's called a K-shaped economy: Earners and consumers at the top of the K are doing OK; they're able to plug along, make good money, and easily spend on both everyday necessities and leisure activities. The unemployment rate of recent college graduates, defined as 22- to 27-year-olds, has consistently outpaced the rate of all workers since 2021. There are also divisions among the various sectors where Americans work. While healthcare payrolls declined in February, the sector is still far more robust than white-collar fields and pretty much everywhere else in the job market. The report said "weaker pay raises when changing jobs" could be an explanation. Seemingly robust economic markers — like a growing GDP — don't benefit all earners. Atsi Sheth, the chief credit officer at Moody's Ratings, told Business Insider that GDP gains have disproportionately accrued to higher-income groups over the last few years, and that divide has grown starker in the post-pandemic era; for households that get at least some of their income from investments and capital gains, strong financial markets have had more of an impact. There's also the added layer of the changing tax landscape, which will show up in some consumers' pockets come refund season. Larger refunds could be a boon across income groups, but, overall, new tax policy might still end up benefiting higher earners more. "Tax changes passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will partly also contribute to that K dynamic," Ksenia Bushmeneva, an economist at TD Bank Group, said, adding "research has shown that benefits from lower taxes are expected to flow disproportionately primarily to the middle- and higher-income households." If you're toward the bottom of the K, you might have bid organic produce goodbye — or thought twice before buying theater tickets. Some of the divide in consumer spending comes from cost-of-living pressures: Even as wages went up, so, too, did prices. Lower-income Americans have been hit harder by price increases. Are you cutting back or changing your spending habits? Higher-earning consumers — those with household incomes over $150,000 — are spending more on meat, vegetables, and beverages, per data from NielsenIQ (NIQ). Meanwhile, those earning under $50,000 are paring back their spending on things like baking supplies. "When there is a level of cost consciousness, consumers will begin to think about calories for their dollar to some extent," Jack O'Leary, an e-commerce thought leader at NIQ, said. That means more cash-strapped consumers will cut back on spending in what he calls the "perimeter categories" of grocery stores — produce, fresh meat, and fresh bakery goods. Those foods, while nutritious, don't have the most favorable price-to-calorie ratios. "Perishability factors in there as well," O'Leary said. "There's a lot more assurance that you'll have what you've stocked up on for longer when it's a shelf-stable, non-perishable product." Bushmeneva said the spending divide is driven by financial well-being and has been "top-heavy," with higher-income households supporting it. Bushmeneva noted that the pandemic-era wage trends highlighted above helped support spending among lower-income households, but those trends have now reversed. Peter Atwater, an adjunct lecturer of economics at William & Mary, thinks there's also unequal opportunity in how people can experience dining, travel, education, and entertainment. If you aren't able to see it in person, you may then have to see it live-stream or on rerun." "We're seeing greater credit stress in subprime auto, for instance, some parts of borrowing, but again at the lower end of the spectrum," Sheth said. "But overall, if you compare household balance sheets today to, say, the pre-global financial crisis era, they're generally stronger — much stronger at middle- and upper-income levels, of course, but generally stronger." A 2025 analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that credit card debt held by Americans in the lowest-income 10% of zip codes was much more likely to end up in delinquency than that owed by people in the top 10% of zip codes.

Every time Shubhangi 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. They're touting efficiency gains, listing it as a need-to-have in job descriptions, buying their employees subscriptions, and even investing in vibe-coding startups themselves. They're also seeing their shares take a hit as investors dump legacy software stocks over concerns that AI and vibe coding will allow companies to build their own software rather than buy. Both narratives are driving the valuations of vibe-coding startups such as Lovable, Cursor, and Replit, now well into the billions. "Our mission has always been that every human with an idea and an internet connection should be able to build any app they want," Amjad Masad, the CEO of Replit, said in a release on Wednesday, announcing his company's $9 billion valuation. The industry has also seen its fair share of deals. In July, AI startup Cognition snatched up Windsurf after OpenAI's $3 billion deal to acquire the vibe coding tool maker fell through. These entrants are competing with far bigger and better-funded players, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft, that make their own AI-powered coding tools. Business Insider compiled a list of the startups riding the vibes, detailing their latest valuations, fundraises, and what they're best known for. Earlier this week, Business Insider reported that the Swedish startup's annual recurring revenue has surged by more than 30%, from $300 million to $400 million in a single month. Lovable, founded by Anton Osika and Fabian Hedin, was valued at $6.6 billion in a December funding round led by CapitalG and Menlo Ventures. Cursor, a household name among software developers and AI enthusiasts, continues to see its valuation boom, even as it is being brutally compared to Anthropic's Claude Code. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that the San Francisco-based AI coding company is in talks for a new funding round that would value the startup at about $50 billion. Cursor is backed by investors including Accel, Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Nvidia. After Anthropic released its latest model, Opus 4.6, last month, some founders and developers said that they are ditching Cursor for Anthropic's Claude Code. Replit, founded in 2016, touts itself as an all-in-one platform that not only generates code but also builds, hosts, and deploys applications in one place. Over the past few years, Replit has pivoted from a collaborative coding environment to the Replit Agent that can turn plain-English descriptions into working applications, lowering the barrier to entry for beginner coders. On Wednesday, the startup announced that it raised a $400 million Series D round at a $9 billion valuation, led by previous investor Georgian Partners. Other investors include Coatue, Andreessen Horowitz, Craft Ventures, Y Combinator, Accenture Ventures, and angels Shaquille O'Neal and Jared Leto. In January, Business Insider reported that the startup raised $70 million in Series B funding from Khosla Ventures and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from Prosus, Lightspeed, Together, and Y Combinator. Emergent's $23 million Series A round closed in September, signaling how eager investors are to get in on the growing pie. "A lot of the other platforms, they're great for prototyping, they're great for demos, but when it comes to really managing the entire lifecycle of software development, they fall short," CEO Mukund Jha told Business Insider. "That's a gap we are trying to fill in the market right now." Paris-based Poolside was cofounded in 2023 by former GitHub head of tech Jason Warner and software entrepreneur Eiso Kant. The company focuses on building models that can write computer software and coding applications. The Nvidia investment would be part of a $2 billion round that Poolside is raising at a $12 billion valuation, per Bloomberg. Bolt, which uses Anthropic's models to let users build what they want with plain English generated about $1 million in ARR in the first week it came out, cofounder Eric Simons told Business Insider last year. "I had slept three hours a night for a week straight to get the release out with our team," Simons told Business Insider about Bolt's release. "After seeing it live, and people loving it — beyond anything I had ever created before — I cried, alone at my desk in my backyard shed office."

Every time Matthew 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. US Central Command released new footage on Wednesday of strikes against some of Iran's old American-made surveillance and transport military aircraft. The videos, posted on X, showed a Lockheed C-130 Hercules and a Lockheed P-3F Orion being set ablaze by airstrikes as they were grounded on runways. Every time Matthew publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! Stay connected to Matthew 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. Tehran was believed to field about 28 of these turboprop planes, but it's unclear how many remain after recent strikes on its military assets. Iran also purchased six P-3F Orion maritime surveillance aircraft before the revolution and was, until recently, believed to still operate five of them. Its air force is also reported to have roughly five IL-76s. Separate satellite images from Monday obtained by Business Insider also show that several of Iran's American-made F-14 Tomcat fighter jets — made famous by the film "Top Gun" — were destroyed at an airbase in Isfahan. The US and Israel have continued to launch strikes against Iran, saying they've attacked over 5,500 sites and military assets since February 28. Over a dozen reported attacks on the strait have reduced its traffic to a crawl, sending oil prices briefly spiking over $100. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the war with Iran may end soon and there was "practically nothing left to target" in the country.

Every time Aditi 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. Major US airports are calling for donations of food and other essentials to TSA workers who are going without paychecks amid the partial government shutdown. In an X post on Wednesday, Denver International Airport wrote, "DONATIONS NEEDED." Drop off locations can be found at Final Approach cell phone lot and in the Jeppesen Terminal. A Denver airport spokesperson told Business Insider that during the partial government shutdown, airport leadership and TSA leadership identified grocery store and gas gift cards as "immediate needs" for TSA employees. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport wrote in a similar X post on Wednesday that essential federal workers, including TSA and Customs and Border Protection staff, are continuing to work without pay, and the airport has opened a food pantry to support them. If you'd like to help, donations of non-perishable food, hygiene items, and diapers can be dropped off at the SEA Conference Center between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. pic.twitter.com/ZMU56rgLIt "If you'd like to help, donations of non-perishable food, hygiene items, and diapers can be dropped off at the SEA Conference Center between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.," the airport's X post read. Perry Cooper, a spokesperson for Seattle Airport, told Business Insider that pantry donations had been set up during previous government shutdowns. Cooper added that Seattle's airport tenants are helping out, too, by providing meals and discounts to TSA staff during their shifts. Last year, a 43-day shutdown — the longest in the country's recent history — saw TSA agents working without paychecks for weeks, resulting in travel chaos during Thanksgiving.