In the three months since Target overhauled its policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion, the retailer has faced an onslaught of public criticism and a boycott that has carried on for weeks. There has been a clear impact on its business: Foot traffic has reportedly dropped for the last 10 weeks, and Target disclosed that sales had dipped in February. The company’s stock price is the lowest it has been in four years.
Now CEO Brian Cornell is meeting with Al Sharpton (at Target’s request) to discuss the company’s DEI stance and commitment to the Black community, according to a CNBC report. As the head of civil rights organization National Action Network, Sharpton has started taking companies to task for pulling back on DEI efforts: Just this week, he met with PepsiCo after threatening to mount a boycott against the company. Sharpton has said he would consider pushing for a boycott of Target as well, depending on the outcome of his discussion with Cornell.
You cant have an election come and all of a sudden, change your old positions, Sharpton said in an interview with CNBC. If an election determines your commitment to fairness then fine, you have a right to withdraw from us, but then we have a right to withdraw from you.
Target was not immediately available for comment.
Sharpton’s attempts to hold companies like Target accountable for their change of heart on DEI is also a counterweight to the social media campaign waged by conservative activist Robby Starbuck, who has pressured a number of companies to drop DEI policies over the last year.
The changes to Target’s DEI policieswhich the company announced in late Januarywound down its diversity goals and also ended its participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, a popular benchmarking survey that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees. Plenty of other companies have taken a similar position in recent months, especially as the Trump administration has ramped up its attack on corporate diversity programs, increasing the risk of litigation for major employers.
But the vocal response to Target’s reversal on DEI is not exactly unexpected, given the company had made a concerted effort to engage Black entrepreneurs and consumers, particularly in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. Target also took aim at programs that helped attract more Black and minority suppliers, which had benefited many underrepresented business owners over the years.
It’s not clear whether Sharpton will proceed to call for a boycott after speaking with Cornell. (Some Black entrepreneurs have also been split on the issue, arguing it could hurt their business.) But Sharpton has claimed he is looking for some kind of pledge that indicates Target will continue supporting the Black community. You made commitments based on the George Floyd movement what changed? Sharpton told CNBC. Are you trying to say everythings fine now, because the election changed? Thats insulting to us.
When it comes to sharing Instagram Reels with friends, the process of three taps to get a Reel from A to B can feel surprisingly tedious. Now, Instagram has addressed that issue with its latest feature: Instagram Blend.
Announced on Thursday, Blend lets users create invite-only, personalized Reels feeds with friends. By tapping a new two-emoji-hugging icon (the Blend icon) within a chat, you can start or accept a Blend. Once active, Instagram will begin recommending Reels for both users in a shared feed, powered by an algorithm. The feature works in one-on-one DMs as well as group chats. These recommendations, refreshed daily, are said to be unique to each Blend and based on prior activity on the platform.
“We want Instagram to be a place where people connect over creativity, and this is one more way to do that. Its a really fun way to not only share your interests, but to learn a little bit about your friends interests and then you can actually start conversations about that content that you discover,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a Reel.
View this post on Instagram A postshared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)
Instagrams newest feature offers something social media users currently cant find elsewhere (Im looking at you, TikTok). It arrives at a time when several platforms are positioning themselves to capitalize on TikToks uncertain future. Blend is most comparable to Spotifys Blend playlistsshared playlists that merge the music tastes of two or more users. But instead of listening to music while hanging out, youre scrolling Reels together.
For Instagram, Blend could boost watch time by encouraging shared short-form content consumption and allowing users to get to know each others algorithmic preferences. It might also increase Reel discovery, as the feed surfaces a mix of yours and your friendsor, if youre feeling bold, your loversrecommendations. You just have to hope they havent recently fallen into any particularly weird corners of the internet.
Shares of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) plunged by more than 22% Thursday morning after the company reported underwhelming first-quarter earnings and revised its full-year outlook.
The health insurance giant lowered its 2025 earnings forecast, now projecting net earnings of $24.65 to $25.15 per share and adjusted earnings of $26.00 to $26.50 per share. This marks a downgrade from its January guidance, which anticipated net earnings between $28.15 and $28.65 per share and adjusted earnings in the range of $29.50 to $30.00 per share.
UnitedHealth Group grew to serve more people more comprehensively but did not perform up to our expectations, and we are aggressively addressing those challenges to position us well for the years ahead, and return to our long-term earnings growth rate target of 13 to 16%, CEO Andrew Witty said in a statement.
The outlook was a result of two factors, the company revealed.
First, UnitedHealthcares Medicare Advantage plans saw more people using medical services than expectedespecially visits to doctors and outpatient care. This increase was clear at the end of the quarter and was much higher than the company planned for 2025, although it was similar to high usage levels it saw in 2024.
On top of that, Optum Health, a division of UnitedHealth Group, had some unexpected changes in its patients. Some health plans left certain areas, and the people covered by those plans didnt use services much in 2024, which affected the planning for how much money would come in for 2025. Also, more patients than expected were “complex” cases, people with serious or multiple health issues, and were heavily affected by past cuts to Medicare funding.
The number of people served by the companys offerings for seniors and people with complex needs grew by 545,000 in the first quarter and remains expected to grow up to 800,000 in 2025, according to the report.
The company said these factors are highly addressable over the course of 2025 and it looks ahead to 2026.
Other insurance stocks are tumbling, too
The health insurance sector saw significant stock sell-offs following what appeared to be surprising financial troubles at industry leader UnitedHealth, according to the Wall Street Journal. Humana, for instance, saw an 8% decline. Elevance Health and CVS Health saw their stock prices fall about 6% each early Thursday morning.
UnitedHealth Group reported revenues of $109.6 billion, marking a $9.8 billion increase year-over-year, with first-quarter earnings from operations totaling $9.1 billion.
Google has acted illegally to maintain a dominant position in online advertising, a federal judge ruled on Thursday. The tech giants exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Googles publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web, Judge Leonie Brinkema wrote in her 115-page ruling, which followed another federal judges ruling last year that Google had monopolized the search market.
Google was found liable under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act for actions in the ad exchange and tool sectors, but not that it operated a monopoly on ad networks. Google told Fast Company it disagreed with the courts decision, and would appeal it. We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half, said Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president, regulatory affairs, in a statement.
The latest decision is a big hit to the company, and acts as a prelude to further crackdowns in other jurisdictions, which some suggest could impact its operations. This is a very big deal, says Stacy Mitchell, co-director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. The chokehold that Google has over the flow of information and ideas online, and its power to pocket the ad dollars, has been killing off local news outlets and undermining a key foundation of democracy.
Jason Kint, CEO of the trade association Digital Content Next, says the ruling underscores the global harm caused by Googles practices, which have deprived premium publishers worldwide of critical revenue, undermining their ability to sustain high-quality journalism and entertainment. Kint believes the decision is a significant step toward restoring competition and accountability in the digital advertising ecosystem.
Yet for all the headlines the decision will generate, theres still uncertainty about how much itll change Googles practicesand the wider web. While theres a recognition that the decisions will likely change how Google works, what impact that will have is uncertain. Frankly, the ad exchange market is so complicated that it’s hard to know what the impact of any changes to Google’s operations in that area might mean for internet users, says Anupam Chander, a law professor at Georgetown University.
Chander believes any changes compelled by this decision may not immediately be obvious to rank-and-file users. If Google is forced to spin out its ad exchange market or forced to open it up to more competitors, it’s not clear that the results will be visible to users, he says. The ruling could also present a Catch-22: While it may open up the ad market and benefit online publishers, it could also lead to increased data collection of users (since a raft of third parties would compete to gather more data on users to supplant Googles current single supply).
Still, the decision, whatever it means for end users, is another drumbeat in a wider shift in power between big tech giants and the governments trying to regulate them. And while attention is on the U.S. right now, its decisionmaking elsewhere that could have the more longer-lasting impact on the web. The U.S. courts decision will likely energize European regulators, who are conducting their own investigation into Googles ad tech practices. A decision there is expected imminentlyand could carry more weight.
After years of imposing fines that Google has shrugged off as a mere cost of doing business, the European Commission has the chance to break free from this cycle of whack-a-mole enforcement, says Stephen Kinsella, an independent legal expert with 30 years of experience in antitrust regulation.
European regulators may be prepared to go further than their American counterparts, potentially reshaping the digital ecosystem by compelling the breakup of Googles intertwined businesses. By taking decisive action and mandating a structural break-up, the EU can go beyond slapping big tech companies on the wrist, says Kinsella. It can restore a thriving, competitive and fair digital economy that works for its citizens, not entrenched monopolies. This is a moment that Europe cannot afford to let pass.
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
Once again, Zillow has downgraded its 12-month forecast for national home prices. On Wednesday, Zillow economists published their updated forecast model, projecting that U.S. home prices, as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index, will fall 1.7% between March 2025 and March 2026.
Back in March, Zillow downgraded its 12-month outlook for U.S. home prices to +0.8%. In February, Zillow downgraded its 12-month outlook to +1.1%. And at the start of the year in January, Zillows 12-month national home price forecast was +2.9%.
Why does Zillow keep downgrading its national home price outlook?
The rise in [active] listings is fueling softer price growth, as greater supply provides more options and more bargaining power for buyers, Zillow economists wrote in March. Potential buyers are opting to remain renters for longer as affordability challenges suppress demand for home purchases.
Essentially, Zillow thinks strained housing affordabilitycaused by U.S. home prices rising over 40% during the pandemic housing boom and mortgage rates spiking from 3% to 6% in 2022is weighing on price growth.
According to Zillows home price model, the listing site also believes that weakening and softening housing markets across the Sun Belt will weigh on nationally aggregated home prices this year.
!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}();
Among the 300 largest U.S. metro area housing markets, Zillow expects the strongest home price appreciation between March 2025 and March 2026 to occur in these 10 areas:
Atlantic City, NJ: 2.4%
Kingston, NY: 1.9%
Rochester, NY: 1.8%
Knoxville, TN: 1.7%
Torrington, CT : 1.6%
Bangor, ME: 1.5%
Syracuse, NY: 1.4%
Vineland, NJ: 1.4%
Concord, NH: 1.3%
Norwich, CT: 1.2%
In that same time frame, Zillow expects the weakest home price appreciation to occur in these 10 areas:
Houma, LA: -10.1%
Lake Charles, LA: -8.9%
New Orleans, LA: -7.6%
Lafayette, LA: -7.5%
Shreveport, LA: -7.0%
Alexandria, LA -7.0%
Beaumont, TX : -6.6%
Odessa, TX: -6.3%
Midland, TX: -5.7%
Monroe, LA: -5.5
Below is what the current year-over-year rate of home price growth looks like for single-family and condo home prices. Florida is currently the epicenter of housing market weakness right now.
!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}();
In my coaching, I pride myself on helping clients get to the root of their issues, instead of offering Band-Aid solutions. At the same time, Ive found that sometimes people are so overwhelmed with all they have to do that they have difficulty making time for the deeper reflective thought that coaching requires. In these situations, I offer some quick and easy-to-implement best practices to help reduce their sense of overwhelm.
Managing your work calendar effectively is one of the most crucial steps toward feeling more in control of your professional life. When your calendar is well-organized, it reduces stress, increases productivity, and ensures that you are focusing on the tasks that truly matter. However, its easy to feel overwhelmed by back-to-back meetings, constant demands on your time, and the struggle to find space for deep work.
Heres how you can regain control of your work calendar with practical tips and strategies that can be implemented right away:
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/acupofambition_logo.jpg","headline":"A Cup of Ambition","description":"A biweekly newsletter for high-achieving moms who value having a meaningful career and being an involved parent, by Jessica Wilen. To learn more visit acupofambition.substack.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/acupofambition.substack.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
Set clear priorities
Before diving into calendar management, it’s important to set clear priorities. Your calendar should reflect your key objectives, goals, and valuesnot just the urgent requests that come your way. Start by identifying your top priorities for the week, month, and quarter. These could include project milestones, professional development, or key meetings with stakeholders.
Set clear priorities
Time blocking is a powerful technique where you divide your day into blocks of time dedicated to specific tasks or activities. This method helps you focus on one task at a time, reducing the mental clutter that comes from multitasking. It also ensures that you allocate time to all aspects of your work, including deep work, meetings, and administrative tasks.
Learn to say no
One of the biggest challenges in calendar management is learning to say no. Its easy to accept every meeting request that comes your way, but this often leads to a crowded calendar with little time for meaningful work. Protecting your time is essential to maintaining control over your schedule.
Use the two-minute rule
The two-minute rule, popularized by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done, suggests that if a task can be completed in two minutes or less, you should do it immediately. This rule helps prevent your to-do list from becoming cluttered with minor tasks and ensures that these small items dont take up unnecessary space on your calendar.
Leverage technology
Modern calendar tools offer a range of features that can help you manage your time more effectively. From scheduling assistants that find the best meeting times to integration with task management apps, these tools can significantly reduce the time you spend organizing your calendar.
Batch similar tasks
Batching similar tasks together is a technique that can improve your efficiency and focus. For example, if you need to make multiple phone calls, schedule them back-to-back rather than scattering them throughout the day. This minimizes the mental switch costs associated with jumping between different types of tasks.
Create buffer time
Buffer time between meetings and tasks is essential for maintaining flexibility and preventing burnout. It gives you a moment to regroup, reflect, or handle any unexpected issues that arise during the day. Without buffer time, your day can feel rushed, and you may find yourself running late from one meeting to the next.
Review and reflect
Effective calendar management requires regular review and adjustment. At the end of each week, take a few minutes to reflect on how well your calendar worked for you. Did you manage to stick to your time blocks? Were there meetings that could have been shorter or avoided? Use these insights to make adjustments for the following week.
Delegate and outsource
If youre constantly overwhelmed by tasks, it might be time to delegate or outsource some of them. Delegating responsibilities to others not only frees up your time but also empowers your team members to take on more responsibility. (For more on how to delegate effectively, see here.)
{"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/acupofambition_logo.jpg","headline":"A Cup of Ambition","description":"A biweekly newsletter for high-achieving moms who value having a meaningful career and being an involved parent, by Jessica Wilen. To learn more visit acupofambition.substack.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/acupofambition.substack.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
Young volunteers who respond to natural disasters and help with community projects across the U.S. have been discharged as a result of the Trump administration ‘s campaign to shrink government workforce and services.
AmeriCorpss National Civilian Community Corps informed volunteers Tuesday that they would exit the program early due to programmatic circumstances beyond your control, according to an email obtained by the Associated Press.
More than 2,000 people ages 18 to 26 serve for nearly a year, according to the programs website, and get assigned to projects with nonprofits and community organizations or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It celebrated its 30th year last year.
The volunteers are especially visible after natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Helene last year. The organization said on social media last month that teams have served eight million service hours on nearly 3,400 disaster projects since 1999.
Jordan Kinsler, 23, has worked with FEMA Corps for the past nine months, traveling from Minnesota communities impacted by floods to ones in North Carolina touched by Helene. He and his team were on their final project at FEMA headquarters in Washington when they got word Tuesday that they wouldn’t be able to finish.
Kinsler, who is from Long Island, New York, said they packed that night and left Wednesday morning for their home base in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Kinsler said he’s proud of the work he’s done and had hoped to apply for a permanent position.
To have this ripped right from us at the very end, it felt insulting,” he said.
The AP sent an email Wednesday seeking comment from AmeriCorps.
Funding for AmeriCorps and NCCC has long been included when there are talks in Congress of budget trims. The federal agencys budget showed NCCC funding amounted to nearly $38 million last fiscal year.
The unsigned memo to members said NCCC’s ability to sustain program operations was impacted by new operational parameters laid out by the Trump administration’s priorities and President Donald Trump’s executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency. Members, who receive a living allowance and have basic expenses covered, would be paid through the end of April, according to the memo.
The program also provides members who complete their 1,700-hour service term with funding for future education expenses or to apply to certain student loans. That benefit was worth about $7,300 this service year.
The memo stated that those who have completed 15% or more of their term would be eligible for a prorated amount, but those that have completed less would not be eligible.
Theres always been bipartisan support of NCCCand bipartisan criticism, said Kate Raftery, who was NCCC director from 2011 to 2014.
Raftery said the abrupt departure of these service teams would have lasting damage both on the NCCC members who were gaining education and launching careers as well as the organizations that depend on them and the neighborhoods where they served.
It was a very unique mixture of incredible heartbreak and incredible rage, outrage, Raftery said of her reaction to the news. The two were battling themselves most of the day.
Bud Maynard, mayor of Vinton, Iowa, which is home to a regional NCCC campus, said the program has been without a doubt, a blessing for Vinton and celebrated the opportunity to host hundreds of people over the years with an unmatched passion and selflessness to want to help others.
“All of Vinton should never forget what a great program, filled with great people, this has been for not only Vinton but every community that benefited from their mission, Maynard said in a statement Wednesday.
Hannah Fingerhut, Associated Press
A major Burger King franchisee with dozens of locations has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Consolidated Burger Holdings, based in Destin, Florida, filed the court documents this week in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Florida. The franchisee now operates 57 Burger King restaurants in Florida and Georgia, after it reportedly closed 18 locations before its Chapter 11 filing.
“Over the past several years, and particularly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Debtors business suffered significantly from loss of foot traffic, resulting in declining revenue without proportionate decreases in rental obligations, debt service, and other liabilities,” Consolidated Burger said in the filing. The documents also cited “significant hurdles resulting from industry headwinds,” resulting in financial turbulence for the franchisee.
According to the documents, sales plummeted in the past two fiscal years. In 2023, the franchisee documented $76.6 million in sales and a net operating loss of $6.3 million. Last year, sales were down to $67 million with an amplified operating loss of $12.5 million.
Consolidated Burger plans to continue operating during the bankruptcy proceedings and has been seeking a buyer. It listed assets at $78 million in the court documents.It’s unmistakably a tough time for restaurant franchisees, between rising food costs, as well as higher labor costs and slower foot trafficand that’s before restaurant owners begin to feel the impact of Trump’s tariffs. To get more customers in the door, fast food chains have been offering budget meal deals: Last year, Burger King launched a $5 meal deal promotion, similar to one McDonald’s was running.Still, on the whole, Burger King’s sales have been moving in the right direction. According to QSR, which monitors data on quick serve restaurants, the Burger King chain itself outperformed its peers in Q4 with a 1.5% increase in same-store sales compared to 1.2% increase among competitors.Last year, Burger King’s parent company, Restaurant Brands International (RBI), dumped more money into its ambitious restaurant remodeling plans for locations in the U.S. and Canada. RBI also bought Burger Kings largest U.S. franchisee, Carrols Restaurant Group, for $1 billion to expedite the process. RBI said it planned to spend about $2.2 billion on the remodels, and said that by 2028, 85% to 90% of its roughly 7,000 restaurants will be upgraded.
At the time, Burger King U.S. President Tom Curtis told CNBC about the investment, saying, It was the first time in a long time that RBI had invested a significant amount of capital back into the business to coinvest with franchisees.” Curtis continued, I think the process was, Lets see how this works . . . and were seeing early results on remodels.
A consumer advocacy group filed a lawsuit this week to block insurers from charging California customers for $500 million in costs associated with the deadly Los Angeles fires.
California’s insurance commission in February ordered insurers doing business in California to provide $1 billion to the FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, to help it pay out claims related to the L.A. wildfires. The order allows insurers to recoup half the cost from its policyholders in the form of a onetime fee. The commissioner must approve the costs.
The lawsuit, filed by Consumer Watchdog in Los Angeles, alleges Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara overstepped his authority and violated state laws for allowing for such cost shifting without going through the proper process. Such regulations have never been authorized in California and should have been vetted and approved by the Legislature or other oversight agencies before enforcement, Consumer Watchdog argued. The suit is asking the court to block Lara from approving the requests. There were at least three pending applications to implement a surcharge as of Tuesday, according to Consumer Watchdog.
We look forward to defending the rights and pocketbooks of Californians and stopping this socialization of FAIR Plan losses at the publics expense, while the FAIR Plans profits will wholly remain with the insurance companies, Consumer Watchdog staff attorney Ryan Mellino said in a statement.
The Department of Insurance said the lawsuit could make California’s insurance crisis worse.
This hurts homeowners, small business and nonprofits who need access to insurance options, while doing nothing to address the insurance crisis, Gabriel Sanchez, a department spokesperson, said in a statement. “It also serves to undermine our efforts to restore competition to all areas of our state, so people can get off the FAIR Plan and back to the regular market.
The FAIR Plan is the state’s last resort option for people who cant get private insurance because their properties are deemed too risky to insure. The plan, with high premiums and basic coverage, is designed as a temporary option until homeowners can find permanent coverage, but more Californians are relying on it than ever. There were more than 555,000 home policies on the FAIR Plan as of March, more than double the number in 2020.
The plan estimated a loss of roughly $4 billion from the Eaton and Palisades Fires, which sparked January 7, destroyed nearly 17,000 structures and killed at least 30 people. The plan had already paid out more than $914 million as of February.
The lawsuit will not affect the FAIR Plan’s ability to pay out claims, Consumer Watchdog said.
The American Property Casualty Insurance Association, the largest national trade association representing home, auto and business insurers called the lawsuit a reckless and self-serving stunt. Insurers have paid ten of billions in claims and contributed more than $500 million to sustain the FAIR Plan after the L.A. fires, the group said.
Blocking recovery of the additional costs insurers have paid to prop up the Fair Plan would jeopardize the last-resort coverage option for homeownersand push our fragile insurance market closer to total collapse,” Denni Ritter, the group’s representative, said in a statement. It is critical that the costs be spread equitably across a broader pool of insured customers to help restore Californias insurance market and protect access to coverage for all consumers.
The regulation to allow insurers to shift some of the costs used to sustain the FAIR Plan is among the strategies unveiled by Lara last year. California is undergoing a yearlong effort to stabilize its insurance market after several major insurance companies either paused or restricted new business in the state in 2023, which pushed hundreds of thousands of homeowners onto the FAIR Plan. Wildfires are becoming more common and destructive in California due to climate change, and insurers say thats making it difficult to truly price the risk on properties.
Of the top 20 most destructive wildfires in state history, 15 have occurred since 2015, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The state now gives insurers more latitude to raise premiums in exchange for issuing more policies in high-risk areas. That includes regulations allowing insurers to consider climate change when setting their prices and allowing them pass on the costs of reinsurance to California consumers.
Trân Nguyn Associated Press
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here.
Nvidia gets burned by Trump on China chips
Silicon Valley magnates fell over themselves to placate and appease President Donald Trump. Nvidia just found out why thats no guarantee of success. The company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday that the Trump administration will now require a license for the company to sell its H20 chipsthe most powerful GPUs still legal for exportto Chinese companies. Nvidia says it will take a $5.5 billion charge in its April quarter earnings reflecting a belief that the license is a permanent requirement and that it has little chance of getting one. With its market cap already down 20% this year, the company watched its shares plunge another 6% in after-hours trading on Tuesday.
The license requirement comes after Nvidia had already made overtures toward Trump. CEO Jensen Huang recently dined with the president at Mar-a-Lago and has reportedly pledged to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new U.S. data centers. Following the Mar-a-Lago dinner, NPR reported that the White House had backed off a plan to restrict the H20 chips. But in the end that wasnt enough to prevent the administration from effectively banning the H20 and gouging out a big chunk of Nvidias revenues.
We lower our fair value estimate for wide-moat Nvidia to $125 from $130 as we cut our revenue estimates to exclude China now and in the future, Morningstar strategist Brian Colello wrote in an investor brief on Wednesday. We retain our Very High Uncertainty Rating. Shares appear undervalued to us, as tariff concerns are likely weighing on the stock. You can almost see the shrugged-shoulders emoji next to Colellos words: Nvidias investor downgrade has nothing to do with real demand for its products, which remains very high.
The administration claims the export controls stem from national security concernsthat H20 chips would pose a threat should Beijing get control of them. But more likely, Trump recognizes Nvidias central role in the generative AI boom, and seized on the companys success as a chess piece in his grudge match against China. The move comes as Chinese AI companies are pulling ahead of their American counterparts in areas like self-driving cars and robotics, and are within striking distance of surpassing the U.S. in frontier model development.
Many D.C. and Silicon Valley insiders will applaud the H20 restrictions. After all, they feed the defense sectors push to bulk up for a military conflict with China (perhaps around Taiwan), and may even slow Chinas considerable momentum in AI research. But this zero-sum, winner-take-all approach may have its downsides, too. Chinese company DeepSeek, for example, was spurred to some impressive AI innovation precisely because it was denied top-tier chips from U.S. competitors. And, as the pundit Thomas Friedman pointed out on The Ezra Klein Show, this centurys biggest problemsthe environment and AI safetyare world problems that will require cooperation and openness between the worlds two superpowers.
And its not just Nvidia. Mark Zuckerberg is learning the same lesson: that Trumps loyalty can often seem transactional at best. The Meta CEO is this week being grilled in the witness chair of a government anti-trust action that could break up his company. Trump has an obedient, all-GOP commission, and yet hes done nothing to stop the case. This after Zuckerberg and company gave $2 million to Trumps inauguration fund, stood behind Trump at the inauguration, bent the knee at Mar-a-Lago and the White House a number of times, abandoned fact-checking on his social platform, promoted longtime Republicans to high positions within Meta, and discontinued DEI programs at the company.
Zuckerberg offered the Federal Trade Commission $450 million, then $1 billion, to keep the case from going to trial, but FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson balked at the numbers and kept the court date. Trump didnt intervene. My guess is that all these tech honchos will eventually learn, in one way or another, what so many others havethe giant black sucking hole that is Donald Trumps ego simply cant be appeased.
OpenAI releases its newest reasoning model, o3
OpenAI on Wednesday unveiled its next flagship reasoning model, called o3. As the second generation of OpenAIs thinking models, o3 can quickly gather contextual data and follow multiple reasoning paths to a correct answerall in real time in response to a user prompt.
OpenAI says the new o3 model outperforms the o1 series in every respect and will replace it. A key advance lies in o3s ability to use external tools to arrive at sound answers. For instance, it might review all the published papers on a specific research problem before crafting its own novel answer, or reason over the contents of an uploaded image.
The combined power of state-of-the-art reasoning with full tool access translates into significantly stronger performance across academic benchmarks and real-world tasks, OpenAI said in a blog post published Wednesday.
According to OpenAI, the o3 model earned state-of-the-art status atop the Codeforces (coding skill), SWE-bench (software engineering skill), and MMMU (visual and textual reasoning skill) benchmark tests.
OpenAI says it used 10 times more computing power to train the o3 model than the o1, utilizing new reinforcement learning that incorporates either human or synthetic feedback to improve the quality of its answers.
To me the magic is that under the hood its still just next-token prediction, OpenAI President Greg Brockman said during a livestreamed demo Wednesday. Weve changed the objective, changed where the data comes from, and now were able to really hook it up to the world.
Alongside o3, OpenAI also released a smaller, faster, and more budget-friendly reasoning model called o4-mini, which the company says excels in math, coding, and visual tasks. In addition, the company introduced Codex CLI, a desktop coding assistant that is powered by the o3 and o4-mini models.
A vibe shift in the way enterprises are talking about AI and the workforce
When corporate executives say AI will usher in a new age of efficiency, what exactly do they mean? At first blush, it sounds like an opportunity to cut down on labor costs (personnel-related headaches). But the truth is more complicated. Over the past year, people in both the corporate and technology worlds have been quick to stress that AI will assist human workers, not replace them. And that narrative has been picked up by people at the management level, as a new survey from Beautiful.ai seems to suggest.
The firm, which sells an AI presentation builder, surveyed 3,000 managers and found that as AI tool use in the workplace rises, most doubt that AI can or should replace human workers. The percentage who said their teams wouldnt function well if some humans were replaced by AI rose 20% over last years survey, to 63% of respondents. And only 30% think replacing staff with AI would be financially beneficialdown 17% from 2024. Meanwhile, 65% say employee resistance to AI remains a top concern.
Its hard to say how much these managers are simply parroting the PR du jour to a surveyor. But it does raise the concern that as real workers begin to gain experience with AI tools, confidence in their potential for actually altering workflows doesnt seem to be growing. Meanwhile, a survey by HR software provider G-P finds that 67% of U.S. executives remain willing to cut headcount and use AI to become 50% more productive.
More AI coverage from Fast Company:
What Ex Machina got right (and wrong) about AI, 10 years later
Docusign expands beyond signatures with new AI-powered contract management tools
The next big AI shift in media? Turning news into a 2-way conversation
Krea, an Adobe for the AI era, discusses its $500 million vision
Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.
