Good morning. How would you fancy a trillion dollar pay deal? Broadcom and OpenAI come for Nvidia. And we try pizza-flavored vodka. Bear with us, it’s ridiculously tasty. Listen to the day’s top stories.
The AI chip race is on. Broadcom is helping OpenAI design and produce an AI accelerator that should hit the market next year and put the heat on Nvidia. That may also help allay any concerns about faltering momentum for the world’s hottest chipmaker.
Photographer: Will Oliver/EPA
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was one of a group of tech execs pledging to boost AI spending in the US at the White House on Thursday. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook also attended a dinner that highlighted Donald Trump’s deepening relationship with Silicon Valley. The president warned that “fairly substantial” tariffs on chip imports are on the way, but hinted that Apple “would be in pretty good shape.”
The New York City mayoral race is heating up. Trump said he’d like to see two candidates drop out to improve the chances of ending Democrat Zohran Mamdani’s insurgent bid. Bill Ackman urged Eric Adams not to run for reelection, but the incumbent says he’s staying in, “no matter what,” and denied he’d been offered a job in the Trump administration, but—according to the New York Times—he's privately hinted he might pull out after a secret meeting in Florida.
Trump will sign an executive order today renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War, reviving a moniker not used since the 1940s. The president has long mused about making the change, even as he boasts of his efforts to end conflicts abroad and argues that he’s deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Chile’s foreign minister said Latin American nations are drafting a joint declaration calling for peace. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the US would be open to basing troops in Ecuador, more than 15 years after a previous president expelled them.
All this comes just weeks after Washington put a $50 million bounty on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s head, awakening some long dormant interventionist fantasies.
The Big Take
Dividends over day jobs. Work hard, invest cautiously and maybe—just maybe—you’ll get a few good years at the end. That’s the deal Americans have been sold for generations. But for jaded Gen Zers, it’s a ripoff. They’re piling into dividends as a way to escape the daily grind, and not just stalwarts like Coca-Cola and Exxon. Today’s crowd is going for high-yield ETFs. Call it the “shiny object syndrome.”
Opinion
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum. Photographer: Stephania Corpi/Bloomberg
As odd political partnerships go, the rapport between Trump and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum is among the least expected, JP Spinetto writes. She’s the one leftist the White House tolerates, for now.
Pizza-flavored vodka anyone? It’s surprisingly delicious, joining other boundary-pushing flavors in the category of “always order the weirdest drink on the menu”—like green tea and mushroom. Read more from Top Shelf, including a cocktail that promises prosperity. (But do keep a breath mint in your back pocket.)
