China’s dominance over critical minerals in global supply chains was a powerful bargaining chip in trade talks between Beijing and Washington that concluded with both sides saying they have a framework to pursue a deal.China has spent decades building the world’s main industrial chain for mining and processing such materials, which are used in many industries such as electronics, advanced manufacturing, defense and health care.Mines and factories in and around Ganzhou, a key production hub for rare earths, underpin China’s control over the minerals. Many residents grew up collecting rocks containing the valuable minerals from the forested hills surrounding the southern city and today make a living from mining, trading or processing them.
Critical minerals as a trade issue
Responding to ever higher tariffs and other controls on advanced technology, China told exporters of certain key rare earths and other critical minerals to obtain licenses for every shipment abroad. Approvals can take weeks, leading to supply chain disruptions in the U.S. and other countries.President Donald Trump said Wednesday that China would make it easier for American industry to obtain much-needed needed magnets and rare earth minerals, clearing the way for talks to continue between the world’s two biggest economies. In return, Trump said, the U.S. will stop efforts to revoke the visas of Chinese nationals on U.S. college campuses.But details remain scarce. Beijing has not confirmed what the negotiators agreed to, and Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump himself have yet to sign off on it.The Chinese Commerce Ministry said Saturday it had approved a “certain number” of export licenses for rare earth products, apparently acknowledging Trump’s personal request to Xi during a phone call last week. And on Wednesday, the Ganzhou-based rare-earth conglomerate JL MAG Rare-Earth Co. confirmed it had obtained some export licenses for shipments to destinations including the U.S., Europe and Southeast Asia.Experts say, however, Beijing is unlikely to do away with the permit system enabling it to control access to those valuable resources.“I think what the Chinese have proven is they have now created an entire export control regime for rare earths,” said Daniel Kritenbrink, a partner at The Asia Group consultancy. “They can turn that spigot on and off at will.”The only scenario in which China might deregulate its critical minerals export is if the U.S. fully removes tariffs imposed on Chinese goods as part of the trade war, said Wang Yiwei, a professor of international affairs at Renmin University, echoing the Chinese government’s earlier stance.“Without that,” he said, “it will be difficult to blame China for continuing to strengthen its export controls.”
An industry built over decades with government support
In 1992, Deng Xiaoping, the leader who launched China’s ascent as the world’s biggest manufacturing power, famously said “the Middle East has oil, China has rare earths,” signaling a desire to leverage access to the key minerals.Several generations later, Beijing has made its rich reserves of rare earths, a group of 17 minerals that are abundant in the earth’s crust but hard, expensive and environmentally polluting to process, a key element of China’s economic security. In 2019, during a visit to a rare earth processing plant in Ganzhou, Xi described rare earths as a “vital strategic resource.”China today has an essential monopoly over “heavy rare earths,” used for making powerful, heat-resistance magnets used in industries such as defense and electric vehicles.The country also produces around 80% of the world’s tungsten, gallium and antimony, and 60% of the world’s germaniumall minerals used in the making of semiconductors, among other advanced technologies.The risks of dependency on Chinese suppliers first came into focus in 2010, when Beijing suspended rare earths exports to Japan due to a territorial dispute. The ban was lifted after about two months, but as a precaution, Japan invested in rare earths processing plants in other countries and began stockpiling the materials.Beijing’s across-the-board requirement for export licenses for some critical minerals has put pressure on world electronics manufacturers and automakers.Some auto parts makers in Europe have shut down production lines due to delays in supply deliveries, according to the European Association of Automotive Suppliers. In the U.S., Tesla CEO Elon Musk said a shortage of rare earths is affecting his company’s work on humanoid robots.
China’s critical minerals resources are dwindling
In the drab industrial hub of Ganzhou, cradled by the scenic Dayu Mountains, the U.S.-China trade war is still a distant stressor. Miners and small mineral traders interviewed by The Associated Press said they are more concerned about depleting the mountains’ once-abundant resources.Zhong, a tungsten factory manager in Ganzhou who would only give his last name, worked his way up to manager from a miner, but he’s unsure there is a future for him and others in the industry.“I find growing difficulties to source tungsten these days,” he said, adding that smaller mines and trading companies are slowly disappearing as the resources are dwindling. Tungsten is an ultra-hard metal used in armor-piercing ammunition, nuclear reactors and semiconductors.At least five tungsten mines have closed in the area in recent years, according to state media. Remaining reserves are deeper and harder to extract and process after decades of exploitation, said Li Shangkui, chairman of the Ganzhou-based Jiangxi Yuean Advanced Materials Co., Ltd.Processing factories in Ganzhou now routinely source materials from other provinces or other countries. Zhong’s plant imports some raw materials from places like Africa and Cambodia.Major state-owned and private companies in Ganzhou are also ramping up investments abroad. Tungsten producer Ganzhou Haisheng, for instance, announced last year a $25 million investment in a new tungsten plant in Thailand.Whatever the challenges in procuring raw materials, China likely will seek to maintain its dominance in critical minerals, said Fabian Villalobos, an engineer and critical minerals expert at the RAND think tank.
The U.S. lags far behind China on critical minerals
Between 2020 and 2023, the U.S. imported at least 70% of the rare earth compounds it used from China, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It has diversified its sources in recent years, but still mainly relies on China.Since beginning his second term in office, Trump has made improving access to critical minerals a matter of national security. Bu the U.S. has an incredibly long way to go to catch up with China, experts say.The sole operational U.S. rare earths mine, in Mountain Pass, California, is unable to separate heavy rare earths. It sends its ore to China for processing. The U.S. Defense Department has provided funding to the mine’s owner, MP Materials, to build new separation facilities. It will take months to build and still only produce a fraction of what is needed.Friction over the issue has opened the way for government-backed financing that was unavailable before, said Mark Smith, who ran the Mountain Pass mine in the early 2010s and now leads NioCorp. It’s seeking about $780 million in financing through the U.S. Export-Import Bank to build a processing facility in Nebraska for critical minerals including rare earths.The Defense Department has committed $439 million to building domestic rare earth supply chains, but building a complete mining and processing industrial chain like China’s could take decades.“There are going to be some real issues here unless we can figure out how to get along with China for a period of time while we’re developing our own resources and our mainstream processing,” Smith said.The spotlight on critical minerals also provides opportunities for smaller miners to invest in extracting and processing some critical minerals, such as tungsten, considered “niche” because they are needed in relatively small amounts in key industries, said Milo McBride, an expert on sustainability and geopolitics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.“For many of these companies, the business strategy hedges on a scenario where the U.S. and China become more confrontational and where trade relations become more uncomfortable,” McBride said. “And all of a sudden, what was once an uneconomic project somewhere outside of China starts to make more sense.”
Associated Press news researcher Shihuan Chen contributed to this story.
Simina Mistreanu Associated Press
Toy robots that teach children to code. Sneakers made in America. Mold-resistant kitchen gadgets.The three items are among new products that have gotten stuck in the pipeline due to President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policies, according to the brand founders behind the stalled items. They say that instead of fostering U.S. innovation, Trump’s tariffs are stifling it with extra costs and unexpected work.At Learning Resources in Vernon Hills, Illinois, Made Plus in Annapolis, Maryland, and Dorai Home in Salt Lake City, research and development have taken a backseat to recalculating budgets, negotiating with vendors, and tracking shipments in the shifting tariff environment.“If we don’t have enough cash to cover just the restocks of the things that we know we need, do we want to take a risk on this new thing when we don’t know how well it will sell yet?” Dorai Home founder Kelsey O’Callaghan said.O’Callaghan started the eco-friendly home goods company with a stone bath mat and now offers about 50 kitchen and bathroom accessories, which are made in China with a non-toxic material that dries quickly. New launches are critical to increasing sales and attracting customers, she said.As Trump increased the tariff on Chinese goods to 20% and as high as 145% before reducing the import tax rate to 30% for 90 days, Dorai Home postponed introducing new merchandise. O’Callaghan said she had to lay off the CEO as well as the head of product development, who helped the company jump on new trends.“I haven’t really put the time or the emphasis on (innovation) because I’m covering too many other people’s roles,” she said.The company paused shipments from China in early April but resumed some on a staggered basis after the president’s rate reduction. On Wednesday, Trump touted progress in U.S.-China trade talks.With details still sketchy and a deal not finalized, entrepreneurs interviewed by The Associated Press said they viewed the tariffs war as an ongoing threat.
Tariffs and American innovation
The potential stunting of innovation follows an economic slowdown during the coronavirus pandemic, when companies also had to put projects on hold. Some experts think the on-again-off again tariffs may have more enduring consequences because they rewire markets and upend business strategies.“When executive attention shifts from innovation to regulatory compliance, the innovation pipeline suffers. Companies end up optimizing for the political landscape rather than technological advancement,” economists J. Bradford Jensen, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Scott J. Wallsten, president of the Technology Policy Institute think tank, wrote in an April blog post.Trump has argued that curtailing foreign imports with tariffs would help revive the nation’s diminished manufacturing base. Analysts and various trade groups have warned that fractured trade ties and supply chains may depress R&D activity of U.S. tech and health care companies that rely on international partnerships or foreign suppliers.Small companies, which often drive the innovations that create jobs and economic growth, already are under strain.With fewer people on staff and tighter budgets compared to large corporations, entrepreneurs say they are spending more time on cutting costs, suspending or arranging orders, and deciding how much of their tariff-related costs to charge customers. That means they’re spending less time thinking of their next big ideas.Schylling Inc., a Massachusetts company that produces modern versions of Lava lamps, Sea-Monkeys, My Little Pony and other nostalgic toys, has its products made in China. As part of its strategy to account for tariffs, the company put a group of employees on temporary unpaid leave last month to reduce expenses.Marketing director Beth Muehlenkamp said she and other furloughed workers typically would have been planning products for the final months of 2026. But Schylling isn’t focusing on designing new products given the unstable trade outlook.“It’s really hard to focus on innovation and creativity when you’re consumed with this day-to-day of how we’re just going to balance the books and deal with the changing rates,” Muehlenkamp said.
An uneven product pipeline
Even some companies that do their manufacturing in the U.S. are scaling back investments in new products. Made Plus, a Maryland company that makes athletic shoes at a small factory in the state capital, put a planned golf line on hold because two key componentsa foam insole and the tread for the bottom of the shoecurrently are made in China, founder Alan Guyan said.The company customizes its shoes on demand and charges $145 to $200 a pair. The footwear is made from recycled plastic bottles with advanced knitting, 3D printing and computerized stitching techniques. It’s looking into getting components from Vietnam instead of China.Embracing new technology is essential to restoring manufacturing capability in the U.S. and competing with Asia, Guyan said. But given ongoing trade frictions, he said he does not want to invest time or money evaluating the latest embroidery and knitting machines, which come from Germany, Italy, China and the U.S.“We’re just battening down the hatches a little bit and just hoping that there’s enough influence in the community of footwear that it will somewhat change and get resolved and we can move forward,” he said of the tariff roller coaster.In contrast, many big companies are forging on. Google parent Alphabet confirmed late last month that it still planned to spend $75 billion on capital expenditures this year, with most of the money going toward artificial intelligence technology.
What’s next for R&D?
Sonia Lapinsky, a managing director at consulting firm AlixPartners, has advised her clients to limit tariff discussions to a small group of executives and to keep their product creation cycles in motion.Businesses have an even greater imperative to come up with attention-grabbing innovations when consumers may be reluctant to open their wallets, she said.Yet smaller companies may struggle to wall off tariff discussions from the rest of the business.Learning Resources CEO Rick Woldenberg said that roughly 25% to 30% of the 350 employees at the educational toy company’s headquarters, including product developers, are working at least part-time on tariff-related tasks.The company usually develops 250 different products a year and expects to get half that many off the drawing board for 2026, Woldenberg said. While exploring factories in countries besides China, he said, Learning Resources is delaying the next generation of its interactive robots that help children develop computer programming skills through games and other activities.The family-run business and Woldenberg’s other toy business, hand2Mind, are locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration. Te jointly owned companies filed a lawsuit accusing the president of exceeding his authority by invoking an emergency powers law to impose tariffs.A federal judge ruled in favor of the two companies last month, and the administration has appealed the decision. Woldenberg said he’s ready to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.“It’s a win at the Supreme Court that we need,” he said. “And so until then, there will be no certainty. Even then, if the government is bound and determined to keep us in an uncertain situation, they’ll be able to do that.”
Anne D’Innocenzio, AP Retail Writer
House Republicans are moving to cut about $9.4 billion in spending already approved by Congress as President Donald Trump’s administration looks to follow through on work by the Department of Government Efficiency when it was overseen by Elon Musk.The package to be voted on Thursday targets foreign aid programs and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides money for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, as well as thousands of public radio and television stations around the country.Republicans are characterizing the spending as wasteful and unnecessary, but Democrats say the rescissions are hurting the United States’ standing in the world.“Cruelty is the point,” Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said of the proposed spending cuts.The Trump administration is employing a tool rarely used in recent years that allows the president to transmit a request to Congress to cancel previously appropriated funds. That triggers a 45-day clock in which the funds are frozen pending congressional action. If Congress fails to act within that period, then the spending stands.The benefit for the administration of a formal rescissions request is that passage requires only a simple majority in the 100-member Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to get spending bills through that chamber. So, if they stay united, Republicans will be able to pass the measure without any Democratic votes.The administration is likening the first rescissions package to a test case and says more could be on the way if Congress goes along.Republicans, sensitive to concerns that Trump’s sweeping tax and immigration bill would increase future federal deficits, are anxious to demonstrate spending discipline, though the cuts in the package amount to just a sliver of the spending approved by Congress each year. They are betting the cuts prove popular with constituents who align with Trump’s “America first” ideology as well as those who view NPR and PBS as having a liberal bias.In all, the package contains 21 proposed rescissions. Approval would claw back about $900 million from $10 billion that Congress has approved for global health programs. That includes canceling $500 million for activities related to infectious diseases and child and maternal health and another $400 million to address the global HIV epidemic.The Trump administration is also looking to cancel $800 million, or a quarter of the amount Congress approved, for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and sanitation, and family reunification for those forced to flee their own country.About 45% of the savings sought by the White House would come from two programs designed to boost the economies, democratic institutions and civil societies in developing countries.The Republican president has also asked lawmakers to rescind nearly $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which represents the full amount it’s slated to receive during the next two budget years. About two-thirds of the money gets distributed to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. Nearly half of those stations serve rural areas of the country.The association representing local public television stations warns that many of them would be forced to close if the Republican measure passes. Those stations provide emergency alerts, free educational programming and high school sports coverage and highlight hometown heroes.Advocacy groups that serve the world’s poorest people are also sounding the alarm and urging lawmakers to vote no.“We are already seeing women, children and families left without food, clean water and critical services after earlier aid cuts, and aid organizations can barely keep up with rising needs,” said Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, a poverty-fighting organization.Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said the foreign aid is a tool that prevents conflict and promotes stability but the measure before the House takes that tool away.“These cuts will lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, devastating the most vulnerable in the world,” McGovern said. “And at a time when China and Russia and Iran are working overtime to challenge American influence.”Republicans disparaged the foreign aid spending and sought to link it to programs they said DOGE had uncovered.Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said taxpayer dollars had gone to such things as targeting climate change, promoting pottery classes and strengthening diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Other Republicans cited similar examples they said DOGE had revealed.“Yet, my friends on the other side of the aisle would like you to believe, seriously, that if you don’t use your taxpayer dollars to fund this absurd list of projects and thousands of others I didn’t even list, that somehow people will die and our global standing in the world will crumble,” Roy said. “Well, let’s just reject this now.”
Kevin Freking, Associated Press
Bravo, the network that houses franchises like The Real Housewives, Vanderpump Rules, and Top Chef, has become a reality TV juggernaut.
Started as an arts and culture cable channel, unscripted television was always at the network’s heart, but after a little show called Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the network leaned into reality, with a focus on surfacing its own talent.
Now it’s a strong asset for NBCUniversal, which is hanging onto the network as parent company Comcast spins off properties like E!, Oxygen True Crime, Syfy, CNBC, and MSNBC into a new company, Versant. Despite a period in 2023 when The Real Housewives of New York City (RHONY) star Bethenny Frankel suggested Bravo talent unionize for better treatmentand two ongoing lawsuits from other cast members about their treatment on setBravo is booming.
As NBCUniversal spins out Versant, Bravo will play a big role in the company’s streaming strategy with Peacock, where Bravo fans constitute a low-churn, high-volume audience.
Frances Berwick, chair of Bravo and Peacock Unscripted, appeared on Fast Company‘s Most Innovative Companies podcast to talk about about creating franchises audiences love, keeping them fresh, and why the network waits until a new Housewives season ends before picking up the cameras again.
From left: Jeff Lewis, Frances Berwick, Andy Cohen [Photo: Todd Williamson/Bravo]
What led you to identify unscripted reality TV as the key to Bravo’s kind of transformation from a niche arts network to the juggernaut it is today?
When I first joined the network, we didn’t have any ads. We had largely acquired movies and arts programming. We realized that the way to get into the commercial environment would be to produce original content. Unscripted was the way to go. We started doing series with people like Michael Moore who [did a show called] The Awful Truth. It was funny and provocative. From there we segued into other types of documentaries. We did a very intense interview show with Errol Morris. Then from there, the producers of the Errol Morris show pitched us this fabulous concept called Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
It was food, fashion, beauty, design, and pop culture. We felt like this was the modern representation of the arts. Because of the success of Queer Eyeit really was a hit right out of the gateit allowed us to then invest in doing more. We rapidly started to grow. [Our programming] in those days still had to appeal to our very educated audience and be culturally grounded and in the zeitgeist. We picked up Project Greenlight when it was canceled by HBO, we picked up Project Runway, we came up with Top Chef. We did a bit of celebrity poker along the way which was really fun, too.
We morphed from there into shows like Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. So we dabbled a bit in celebrity. But more than anything, we found that we actually did better if we found our own personalities, if we found interesting people with interesting stories. Then came The Real Housewives of Orange County and it snowballed.
I love that you traced a line from Errol Morris to Queer Eye. What were some of the early risks or bets that paid off?
Project Runway was one of them. When we launched it was a very tiny show. We took some really big bets with that. We had aired about three episodes and it was not really hitting. [But] we knew that there was a bigger audience for it because we had seen the explosion that we’d had when Queer Eye was at its height. So we took the holiday period and we just blasted the entire network.
I think we had a marathon of the three episodes of Project Runway almost incessantly for about 10 days around Christmas and New Year. Viewership doubled the next week. [We succeeded through] word of mouth and sheer grit. Then it just kept growing. We knew we had something that was really good and we believed in it. I will say the same with Queer Eye. We put the entire marketing budget for the year on that one show. We loved the pilot and it tested very well. and We didn’t have much in the way of resources, and so it was go big or go home and it worked.
[Photo: Charles Sykes/Bravo]
How do you approach building franchises, like the Real Housewives series?
It happened by accident. We didn’t launch Real Housewives of Orange County and think let’s franchise this. We actually were developing a show called Manhattan Moms and that’s what we were pitched and during production we saw how successful Real Housewives of Orange County was. We had a whole internal debate about whether it was going to tarnish Orange County if we named Manhattan Moms Real Housewives of New York instead. We then had to persuade some of the cast that it was okay to be called Real Housewives because they weren’t all married. So that became the Real Housewives of New York. Then we were pitched another ensemble female cast in Atlanta that we really liked. It all started with organic groups of friends. It became franchised in a small period of time because we were doing all this casting around female ensembles.
Below Deck’s Captain Sand Yawn at Bravocon, 2023. [Photo: Greg Doherty/Bravo]
How do you keep long-running shows fresh?
There are lessons that we’ve learned from the past where [we did] too much. Two or three years ago, we had five different Below Deck casts. We’ve scaled that back to three at any one time. That’s the right number. Then we are very careful about curating at what moment we should replace or bring in new cast members.
That’s the beauty of a show like Real Housewiveswe can keep refreshing the cast. In some cases we’ll replace the whole cast, but that’s riskier. Then were constantly looking at different ways to tell stories. You’ll notice at some point we started doing much more flashbacks and flash forwards.
What makes a good cast member?
They have to be authentic and vulnerable and really be prepared to share their whole lives with people. Our fans are really passionate, and if they don’t feel that authenticity or if they feel that the cast members are holding things back, they’ll be quite vocal about it.
Usually when we start taping a show, we throw away the first few days anyway, because you can then weed out anyone who’s playing for the camera. You want people’s real personalities to come through or the audience isn’t going to connect with them and buy into them. If we are not seeing that, we tend to minimize that person’s storyline. Andy [Cohen] pointed out recently that often on season two people will get the glow up. Theyll get botox after seeing themselves on screen.
Social media is almost an extra cast member in these shows. How do you think about bringing it in?
We now know we can’t tape an ongoing show while the current cycle is on the air. We have tried that and it gets confusing because the cast members start reacting to things that they see [online] and it becomes very meta. Often that can be a very tedious storyline.
Bravo has a remarkable hit rate when it comes to finding and casting criminals. Why do you think that is?
It really defies all logic that if you are engaged in criminal activity, you would want to go on television because you’re probably going to get worse ramifications and be made an example of. That is really the furthest thing that we want. It’s always a surprise and a disappointment.
There’s a lot of instances that are controversial but not necessarily criminal. When do you know something is so controversial that a cast member needs to be let go?
It really varies and there’s lots of gray area. If we’ve got a whole cast who won’t film with somebody, right, then you can’t bring them back. I will say people redeem themselves.
We put people on television who are flawed, as we all are. But those flaws aren’t criminal. We want to give people a bit of grace in terms of getting some forgiveness and being able to move on. There is talent that we’ve had on the shows where they’ll have a bad season where they didn’t get on well with their cast members. Then, without changing their personality, they may then redeem themselves by other actions.
There have been shows where a cast member clearly has an addiction problem. Is it responsible to keep them on air?
There have been times when we’ve said to cast members we’re not going to film with them. We’re also much more careful on our productions with alcohol consumption than we were a few years ago. But often it will be their [fellow] cast members who will hold them accountable.
Chime Financial is expected to debut on the Nasdaq today. The fintech companys initial public offering (IPO) is one of the most anticipated of 2025, and investors and market watchers will be eagerly waiting to see how the newly public stock performs on its first day of trading.
If it performs well, it could signal positive investor appetite for technology public offerings and the IPO market as a whole. Heres what to know about Chimes IPO.
What is Chime?
Chime Financial, Inc. is a fintech company. It was founded in 2012 and is based in San Francisco. The company offers banking products without the associated fees that traditional banks tack onto accounts.
For example, many of Chimes online banking services dont have a minimum balance, or monthly service or overdraft fees. These fees are major drivers of revenue at traditional banks.
So how does Chime generate revenue without them? The company says its business model is primarily based on interchange fees, which are the fees that merchants pay when they accept a card payment.
Chime’s services can be accessed on the web and also via iPhone and Android apps. Chime is not a bank but rather offers banking services. It has partnerships with Bancorp Bank and Stride Bank.
A diminished market cap
With Chimes IPO, the company is now valued at approximately $11.6 billion, according to CNBC. However, that is less than half of its peak private valuation of $25 billion in 2021. In that year, Chime received a funding round of $750 million.
One reason for Chimes high private valuation in 2021, relative to its valuation today, was the pandemic. As Fast Company previously noted, in the early 2020s, fintech companies experienced a surge in service usage from consumers and garnered significant attention from investors as the pandemic unfolded.
Much of that excitement for companies operating in the fintech space has subsided in subsequent years. The market turmoil of 2025 has also made investors more cautious about companies operating in the finance sector and initial public offerings in general.
In May, another fintech company, the online brokerage firm eToro Group (Nasdaq: ETOR), went public for $52 per share. As of yesterdays close, ETOR shares are trading at $62.96 per share.
Chime by the numbers
On May 13, Chime filed a Form F-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In the F-1 filing, Chime reported the following metrics as of March 31, 2025:
Active Chime members: 8.6 million
Active member growth rate since Q1 2022: 82%
Purchase volume: $121 billion
Average revenue per active member (ARPAM): $251
Gross margin: 88%
Transaction margin: 67%
When is Chimes IPO?
Chime priced its shares on Wednesday and is expected to begin trading today: Thursday, June 12, 2025.
What is Chimes stock ticker?
Chimes stock ticker is CHYM.
What exchange will Chime shares trade on?
Chime shares trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
What is the IPO share price of CHYM?
Chimes IPO price is $27 per share. Thats higher than the expected IPO price of between $24 and $26.
The higher IPO price of $27 per share suggests that Chime believes there is a greater appetite for its shares than previously thought.
How many CHYM shares are available in its IPO?
According to a company press release, a total of 32 million CHYM were made available in its IPO.
Of those shares, Chime offered 25,900,765 Class A shares directly to the public. Existing company shareholders put up the remaining 6,099,235 shares.
How much did Chime raise in its IPO?
Chime raised approximately $700 million in its initial public offering. That consists of the proceeds from the 25.9 million shares the company sold directly.
Chime did not benefit from the sale of the six million shares sold by its existing shareholders.
How much is Chime worth?
At its $27 IPO price, Chimes market cap is now valued at approximately $11.6 billion.
What else is there to know?
Chime is the latest in a number of closely watched tech-focused IPOs this year. In addition to the aforementioned eToro, stablecoin company Circle Internet Group went public earlier this month. Both stocks have performed well since their debut, raising hopes for the IPO market more broadly.
Shares of planemaker Boeing fell nearly 8% in premarket U.S. trading on Thursday after an Air India aircraft with 242 people crashed minutes after taking off from India’s western city of Ahmedabad.
India’s federal health minister said “many people” were killed in the crash. The plane was headed to Gatwick Airport in the UK, with police officers saying it crashed in a civilian area near the Ahmedabad airport.
Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service.
It was not immediately clear what caused the crash. Boeing said in a statement it was aware of initial reports and was working to gather more information.
Boeing’s 787 is a newer series of jets with a solid safety record and no fatal crashes. While battery issues once grounded the fleet, no injuries were reported.
The news comes as the planemaker tries to rebuild trust related to safety in its jets and ramp up production under new Chief Executive Officer Kelly Orthberg.
Boeing’s shares were down about 7.5% at $197.82 in premarket trading.
“It’s a knee jerk reaction (to the incident) and there’s revised fears of the problems that plagued Boeing aircraft and Boeing itself in recent years,” said Chris Beauchamp, analyst at IG Group.
Shashwat Chauhan, Nathan Gomes and Purvi Agarwal, Reuters
Fraudulent job applications have become a serious issue in the era of remote interviews and AI-generated content. Research firm Gartner predicts that by 2028, up to 25% of applications could be fake. In some cases, fraudsters in North Korea have managed to land Western tech jobs under false pretenses, according to recent reports.One client recently told Daniel Chait, cofounder and CEO of hiring software company Greenhouse, that more than 70% of applications for remote tech roles theyre receiving are fake. Others have reported increasing difficulty sorting through waves of irrelevant or fraudulent submissions.What were hearing from them is that theyre overrun with spam, unqualified applicants, cheating (people using various means to pass job interviews), and fraud. [Its] willful misrepresentation in the process, often by kind of nefarious groups, Chait says.To combat the problem, Greenhouse is developing a new platform called Greenhouse Real Talent. The goal is to filter out unqualified candidates submitting AI-generated applications, those using AI tools during interviews, and individuals applying under fake identities.To help with identity verification, Greenhouse is partnering with Clear, the company best known for its expedited airport security service. In recent years, Clear has expanded beyond travel with a platform called Clear1. While airports were the initial focus, the company always intended to move into broader identity verification, says Clear cofounder and CEO Caryn Seidman Becker in an exclusive interview with Fast Company.Clear1 really does reflect our day one vision to make experiences safer and easier, physically and digitally, she says. Its what we talked about and pitched 15 years ago when we went out to raise capital to start Clear, and its coming to fruition today.[Animation: Clear]Clear now provides ID checks for LinkedIn verification badges, tool rentals at Home Depot, and patient check-ins at certain medical facilities. In April, it announced a partnership with DocuSign to integrate identity verification into digital contract signings. T-Mobile also uses Clear1 to authenticate employees, the companies announced Wednesday, saying biometrics help the telecom provider confirm employees actual identities, not just that they know a password or are in possession of a particular device.The Clear1 platform enables businesses to add identity checks into their websites or apps, whether on users phones or company tablets in places like medical offices. First-time users are typically asked to provide an email address and phone number, photograph a government-issued ID, and take a selfie to confirm theyre real. Future verifications are usually quicker.The process is meant to feel similar to logging in with Google credentials or using Apple Pay, allowing users to see what information is shared with the requesting company.They can verify with Clear just like you can pay with Apple, Seidman Becker says.The stage at which applicants are asked to verify their identity through Clear will depend on each companys process. Chait expects that employers using Real Talent, which is set to launch in the third quarter of this year, will ask applicants to reverify at key stages such as before video interviews.Behind the scenes, Clear checks various factors to validate documents, confirm the user matches them, and detect suspicious device activity. Seidman Becker says this provides a seamless way for businesses to ensure users are who they claim to be, without relying on multiple tools.Verification is also faster after a user completes the process once. According to the company, initial verification takes about 90 seconds, and later sessions typically take less than 15 seconds. Clear also offers alternative verification methods for users who struggle with certain stepsa common issue during the COVID-era unemployment surgethough Seidman Becker declined to share details, citing proprietary technology.There are other ways that we can work to verify you, as opposed to some more traditional ID verification companies that just sort of have one trick, if you will, she says.Chait adds that Real Talent will offer an alternative path for applicants who are unable or unwilling to use Clears standard process.If you, for a variety of reasons, dont want to or cant be part of that online verification process, therell be an alternative path, he says. But I think most people will find its a lot more convenient and a lot more straightforward to do it the Clear way.Clear has occasionally faced criticism from lawmakers and travelers over its paid airport perks and from privacy advocates concerned about biometric data use. Seidman Becker argues that Clears visibility and track record actually build trust among businesses and consumers handling sensitive data. She also believes the use of Clear online may drive more sign-ups for its airport services.In May, the company reported that first-quarter revenue rose 18.1% year over year to $211.4 million, with Clear+ airport memberships up 9.1%. Last fall, Clear introduced new facial recognition technology in airports, which it claims is significantly faster than its previous systems.As Seidman Becker puts it, You barely break stride, and it captures your face, and it is joyful and beautiful, and literally five times faster.
Making difficult decisions is an inevitable part of being a leader. And at times, those decisions are unpopular. Yet in instances when it requires the efforts and cooperation of their team members, leaders have to find a way to get buy-in from the people that oppose those decisions in the first place.
This isn’t easy, and requires a delicate balance. Arrivee Vargas, executive coach and author of Your Time to Rise: Unlearn Limiting Beliefs, Unlock Your Power, and Unleash Your Truest Self, shares some of the considerations that you should think about when you need your team to get on board with your decision.
The importance of context
Sometimes, a decision is only unpopular due to lack of context. Employees have no idea how their boss came to the decision, and as a result, they might have their own narrative of what transpired.
That’s why it’s up to the leader to explain why they have to make the decision in the first place and disclose any organizational constraints that apply. Vargas says, “explain the context, explain whats happening at play so you have a nice container for that decision, and employees know what the parameters are and what they expect.”
The importance of seeking feedback with constraints
Employees might also be reluctant to support a decision when they feel like their voice doesn’t matter. As a leader, seeking feedback or input before making a decision should be standard practice, yet Vargas believes this is one of the biggest challenges that leaders face.
However, Vargas argues that it’s important to put some sort of constraint on the decision-making process. One mistake that leaders often make, says Vargas, is entering the process too open. “From the beginning, you need to be able to put the information in a container. What information do I need? Who do I need information from? And you have to decide in advance how much is enough.” This might look like limiting the number of focus groups or amount of survey responses.
Picking the right way of communicating
It’s also important to figure out the appropriate forum to communicate, both when it comes to announcing a decision and seeking feedback. If you have a small team of fewer than 10 people, says Vargas, you need to meet with them one-on-one. Many leaders might argue that they don’t have time for it, says Vargas. However, “if you really care about bringing your team along . . . you have to invest the time and energy to show that you care.”
If it’s a big team, surveys and focus groups are great options for soliciting feedback. While town halls can be effective for giving announcements, they are not always the most appropriate forum for getting honest feedback.
Vargas does note, however, that even with the right method of communication, honest feedback can only come from organizations that have built foundational culture where there is trust, respect, and psychological safety. Without the right foundation, Vargas says, the whole process becomes much more difficult.
The difference between being liked and being respected
Making unpopular decisions is a crucial part of leadership. Yet Vargas believes that many leaders struggle with it because they want people to like them. “For most people, it’s really difficult for them to have these challenging conversations because they’ve never really had to have them.”
But leaders have to be prepared to make tough calls and understand that there is a difference between being linked and respected. “I would say especially for women of color, we’re conditioned to behave that way,” she acknowledges. “You don’t want to cause a fuss, you don’t want to be a bother. They’re very concerned about keeping the peace.”
When you think like this, Vargas says, you’re “confusing the decision-making with you as a person.” She goes on to say that she knows plenty of leaders who people might not necessarily want to spend time with. However, they’re “very much respected for their expertise and the way they make decisions.” As a leader, it’s crucial that you don’t conflate your decisions with your character. “That’s where you can get into trouble,” she says.
The importance of taking accountability
Finally, leaders need to own their decisions and take accountability for them, even when hindsight shows that they’re not necessarily the best ones. Owning when you miscalculate and make the wrong judgment call, says Vargas, is “leadership 101.”
This is where a company’s foundational culture plays a huge part. “You have to have an organization where making mistakes is actually okay,” Vargas says. “Because if you’re in an organization where as a leader, you punish people for mistakes for years, you’re not going to get any help when you admit that you’ve made a mistake.” Leaders need to create a culture where mistakes happen and people are allowed to move on when they’ve learned from them.
Ultimately, everything comes down to showing respect for the employee. “Employees really just want to feel like they’re valued and appreciated,” says Vargas. When it comes to making hard decisions, “they want to feel like you’ve asked me, and you thought that my opinion meant something.” They want to feel like you’ve considered their perspectives, and that it matters.
Agentic AI is the buzzword of 2025. Although technically an “emerging technology,” it feels like companies of all sizes are quickly developing and acquiring AI agents to stay ahead of the curve and competition. Just last week, OpenAI launched a research preview of Codex, the companys cloud-based software engineering agent or its most capable AI coding agent yet. And its fair that people are interested and excited.
Transforming industries
From customer service to supply chain management and the legal profession, AI agents are set to transform industries across the board and are already showing us that they can be pervasive across both consumer and enterprise environments, bringing AI fully into the mainstream. Unlike chatbots and image generators, which provide answers, but require prompts, AI agents execute multistep tasks on behalf of users. In 2025, these autonomous software programs will dramatically change how people interact with technology and how businesses operate.
This aligns with Forresters latest findings, which had agentic AI at the top of its recent Top 10 Emerging Technologies for 2025, highlighting the power and potential of this emerging trend. However, as the report also points out, the rewards come with big risks and challenges. Lets dive into these as well as why companies must prioritize governance before development and implementation in order to stay ahead of, not behind, the curve and their competition.
A Governance-First Approach
In just three years, at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously by AI agentsup from virtually 0% in 2024. This prediction by Gartner, while promising, sits alongside another key stat: 25% of enterprise breaches will be linked to AI agent abuse. As mentioned above, the rapid and widespread adoption of AI agents, while exciting, comes with complex challenges, such as shadow AI, which is why companies must prioritize a governance-first approach here.
So what is it about AI agents that makes them particularly challenging to control?
Short answer: their ability to operate autonomously. Long answer: this technology makes it difficult for organizations to have visibility over four things:
Who owns which agent
What department oversees them
What data they have access to
What actions the agent can take
How do you effectively govern them
A comprehensive approach
This is where unified governance can step in. With a comprehensive governance framework, companies can ensure that AI agents operate responsibly and are aligned with organizational standards and policies. The alternative: a lack of governance framework for AI agents can mishandle sensitive data, violate compliance regulations, and make decisions misaligned with business objectives.
Lets use a real-world example: you are a CEO for a major organization. Your company builds and introduces an AI-powered assistant to help automate workflows and save you time. Now imagine that the assistant gains access to your confidential files. Without guidance or governance, the assistant summarizes sensitive financial projections and closed-door board discussions and shares them with third-party vendors or unauthorized employees. This is definitely a worst-case scenario, but it highlights the importance for a solid governance framework.Heres a helpful governance checklist:
Establish guidelines that clearly define acceptable use and assign accountability.
Carry out regular reviews to help identify and mitigate potential risks and threats.
Appoint the right stakeholder to foster transparency and build trust in how AI agents are used internally and externally.
Blurred lines
According to Sunil Soares, Founder of YDC, Agentic AI will drive the need for new governance approaches. As more applications include embedded AI and AI agents, the line between applications and AI use cases will become increasingly blurred. I couldnt agree more.
Whether you develop AI agents internally or partner with a third-party vendor, this technology will unlock significant value. But the challenges are not one-size-fits-all and will not go away. And while the human element remains important, manual oversight on its own is not sufficient or realistic when it comes to scale and size.
Therefore, when you build out your governance framework, ensure that you have automated monitoring tools in place that detect and correct violations of policies, record decisions for greater transparency, and escalate the complex cases that require additional oversight, such as a human-in-the-loop. A centralized governance framework ensures accountability, risk assessment, and ethical compliance. Like everything else in life, you need to create and establish boundaries.
And dont worryimplementing a governance framework first wont slow innovation down. When you find the right balance between innovation and risk management, you stay ahead of the curve and competition, leaving room for more cutting-edge AI agents and fewer headaches. For a perfect pill, deploy a unified governance platform for data and AI, as it will be the key to managing and ensuring AI agents dont become the next shadow IT.
Perhaps more than at any time in history, boards are being forced to balance innovation and trust. The pressure for this dual mandate arises from intensifying scrutiny, ranging from consumer scrutiny, regulatory oversight, and social media spotlighting, to investor expectations and rapid technological disruption. Against this backdrop, boards must balance daring leaps forward with the confidence that theyre not exposing their organizations to reputational, financial, or ethical harm.
The Innovation Imperative
The world wont wait. Whether it’s AI-driven customer experiences, carbon-neutral operations, or new modular product platforms, innovation is no longer optional. It’s existential. Boards are shifting from passive approvers of CEO strategies to active enablers of resilience through:
– Strategic Questioning: Directors no longer accept its in the works. They challenge leadership to define proof-of-concept milestones, KPIs, and risk thresholds.
– Dedicated Innovation Committees: A growing number of boards are creating specialized committees that bring together technical expertise, market insight, and financial discipline, and are tasked with overseeing R&D road maps, digital transformation, and emerging opportunities.
– Scenario Planning and “Wicked Problems”: Instead of quarterly admonitions to think big, boards are engaging in immersive sessionsenvisioning future disruption scenarios, stress-testing business models, and mapping counter-strategies against emerging risks.
2. Earning (and Keeping) Stakeholder Trust
Innovation ignites trust only when it’s responsibly driven. Yet trust is a fragile asset, easily undermined by data misuse, ethical lapses, and opacity. Boards that prioritize innovation but neglect this dimension may inadvertently sow distrustor worse yet, crisis.
Modern trust-building is multidimensional:
– Governance That Works: Beyond checkbox compliance, boards are emphasizing transparencystreamlining financial disclosures, clarifying related-party transactions, and publicizing agenda topics like executive compensation, human capital metrics, and cybersecurity readiness.
– Ethics as a Board-Level Imperative: Its not enough to hire a CCO. Directors are overseeing ethics frameworks, personally engaging in ethics training, and commissioning third-party audits that signal rigor and independence.
– Technology Accountability: Artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and algorithmic pricing all carry risks of bias, privacy intrusion, and unfair outcomes. Boards are implementing algorithmic impact assessments, empowering ethics officers or advisory councils to review systems and ensure regulatory alignment.
– Active Stakeholder Engagement: This means meaningful dialogue with employees, customers, communities, and investors. Boards are increasingly hosting forums, focus groups, and virtual fireside chats, signaling that decision-making is inclusive, and that issues like workplace fairness, product safety, or community impact are heard and acted upon.
The Tension and the Balance
Can innovation and trust coexist on opposing ends of a seesaw? Yes, when theyre purposefully integrated.
Imagine launching a new AI-powered behavioral platform. The board advocates for its commercial potential, while also demanding explainability standards, third-party audits, responsible data sourcing, and consent frameworks before go-live.
Thats because:
– Trust breeds adoption, which fuels returns.
– Innovation without oversight breeds backlash.
– Day-one compliance investments mitigate scaling risks.
Thus, boards are designing innovation with guardrailsempowering management to move fast, but not recklessly. Trust isnt a constraint; its an accelerant.
Board Capabilities: What Must Change
To settle into this dual mandate, boards need upgraded musclesand perhaps a redesign.
Beyond traditional finance and legal literacy, durable boards now include:
– Digital natives who understand AI, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity.
– Data privacy specialists who grasp GDPR, CCPA, and global compliance regimes.
– Human Capital leaders who understand the opportunities and challenges of managing six generations of humans, as well as agentic AI in the workplace.
Directors must also evolve from police to partners. That means engaging in boardroom debates, questioning business models (not just balance sheets), and prioritizing curiosity and learning.
To accomplish these goals, boards are adopting tools like:
– Dashboards that track innovation metrics alongside trust proxies (bug reports, IT incidents, ethics hotline trends).
– Decision frameworks that layer speed-to-market against reputational cost.
– Dynamic charters that allow committees to pivot between innovation and risk oversight depending on strategic context.
Board in Action: Leading by Example
Some boardrooms are already charting this new course.
– One fintech board mandated a digital ethics panel to review product-development milestones. The program delayed a public launch, but in return, they avoided a privacy scandal and earned plaudits from customers and regulators alike.
– A global retailers board insisted ESG goals be tied to executive bonuses. That enabled a logistics innovation, slashing carbon emissions and boosted brand trust and investor approval.
– A software providers audit committee now cross-purposes voice-of-customer metrics into its risk dashboard, mandating proactive pilot-support before scaling new features, avoiding early usability blowback.
These examples show that boards arent victims of complexity. They can be its architects.
The Road Ahead
Stewardship of innovation and trust is not a checkbox. It’s a continuous evolution. Boards of the future will be dynamic, data-fluent, and culturally influential. They will:
1. Commission future-focused explorationsnot just financial reviewsbefore annual strategy cycles.
2. Embed ethical and trust metrics into quarterly reportingside-by-side with ROI and growth statistics.
3. Institutionalize stakeholder voice through standing advisory groups, embedding external input into board-level decisions.
4. Practice renewal, rotating board talent to reflect changing strategic needsdigital, human capital, ethicswithout losing institutional memory.
Agile, accountable, and anchored
For board leaders and CHROs, the opportunity is clear: to design governance that is agile, accountable, and anchored in shared values. The goal: sustain not just profits, but purpose. When boards become guardians of both innovation and trust, they dont just manage riskthey propel long-term value creation and societal impact.
In summary, the modern boards mandate isnt either/or. Its both/and: bold innovation, disciplined by trust. To succeed, boards must rethink their charters, diversify their expertise, and adopt hybrid oversight frameworks that catalyze progress while safeuarding stakeholder confidence. This is todays blueprint for accountable, future-ready governance.
Hollie Castro is an Independent Board Member, advisor and CHRO who helps organizations integrate culture, innovation, and governance at the executive and board level.
