Business

1. Tech visa fight
2. The memo spooking Wall Street
3. Bonds’ flight to safety
4. Starlink cellphones hit telcos
5. Coke shops Costa

Stocks up after OpenAI reassures investors on revenue … Masa Son asks Gulf investors for $100B … Oracle trucks gas to data centers to keep projects on track

US bars Microsoft from green card program

Companies accustomed to plucking from a global talent market to fill their top jobs are running into campaign-trail politics. The Trump administration banned eight tech companies, including Microsoft, from a program that helps certain foreign workers obtain green cards, hoping to energize the Republican base ahead of midterm elections that aren’t looking good for the party.

Tech executives, who have been some of Trump’s most loyal allies, face a government policy that drives up the cost of labor at a time when AI investments are already squeezing profits. Their heavy use of H-1B visas suggests that many Americans are more expensive, less skilled, or both. (Microsoft said it adheres to the program’s “rigorous standards,” and other companies including Adobe and Infosys didn’t respond to requests for comment.)

Data-center debt warnings

Wall Street’s required reading this week runs 20 pages, carries an “Attorney Advertising” label, and tells financiers exactly how their favorite trade is going to blow up. Law firm Quinn Emanuel’s March memo on data-center debt was making the rounds in recent days, laying out worst-case scenarios for the hundreds of billions of dollars being borrowed and spent to fund the AI buildout. It does the one thing professional-services memos never do: It names names.

A Google-backed project in upstate New York is full of holes, the law firm notes: Google’s backstop doesn’t start until construction is complete; deal documents contemplate a “disagreement” about whether it’s been triggered at all; and a six-month delay would let the tenant, AI company Fluidstack, walk away. Meta’s $28 billion Louisiana complex, CoreWeave’s GPU-backed loans, and Oracle’s off-balance sheet lease obligations get a similar legal dissection.

“Insolvency cascades” are set off by depreciating GPUs. Collateral food fights and margin calls ensue. Quinn Emanuel is a litigation boutique, so it’s talking its book. But business-development brochures were never such grim reading.

— Liz Hoffman

Bondholders are getting picky

Bondholders are getting choosier. Debt fears, the war in Iran, AI-bubble worries, and a cloudy midterm election picture have sparked a newfound discernment among investors who a few months ago were taking all comers.

They have punished riskier borrowers while rewarding safer bets. Spreads on B- and BB-rated debt — the extra interest charged above Treasury bonds — have risen 0.3 percentage points over the past month. AA- and AAA-rated borrowers have seen their yields fall by a few basis points, signaling investors’ flight to safer credits. The bond market is in retreat, but it’s an orderly one for now.

— Ellen DiMauro

Technology is at an inflection point. From AI to the forces reshaping business, science, and daily life, the pace of change is accelerating. Future Proof from Semafor Technology offers a direct look at the breakthroughs, risks, and questions defining what comes next. Hosted by Semafor San Francisco Bureau Chief Reed Albergotti, each episode features conversations with the builders, policymakers, and industry leaders shaping how technology is developed, adopted and governed.

In Future Proof’s debut episode, Cognition CISO and former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos takes aim at Silicon Valley’s “nihilism” and separates AI’s real risks from those he sees as imagined, fueled by “almost religious beliefs.” Plus, he talks about how he plans to tackle cybersecurity’s coming “dark age” and why Aaron Sorkin’s version of Mark Zuckerberg wouldn’t attract employees.

SpaceX enters telco game

Elon Musk made his long-awaited (and Semafor-scooped) move into the wireless game. SpaceX bought a block of airwaves that will let his constellation of Starlink satellites beam cell service directly to iPhones. The move wiped $40-odd billion off the combined values of AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

SpaceX said in its IPO prospectus that mobile service could bring in $740 billion of annual revenue — triple the combined revenue of the big three carriers. Musk has been spurred on by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who has long wanted more competition in the space and needled Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar to sell its spectrum to Musk last year.

— Rohan Goswami

Coke tries to sell Costa, again

Coca-Cola made a $5 billion bet that it could be a coffee company. It’s spent much of the last seven years regretting that decision. Costa has thousands of locations across the UK and was supposed to be Coke’s entry into the competitive space, where it had watched rivals like Starbucks make off with riches.

But Coke’s bet on coffee has turned into an albatross for a business that has a reputation as a pretty great steward of capital. The soda-maker is now trying to sell Costa (for a second time), according to people familiar with the matter, after an earlier sale process drew tepid responses from private-equity bidders. Coke didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Investors want simplicity in their portfolios and Costa, which sits outside of Coke’s refined supply chains and retail distribution networks, never made much sense.

— Rohan Goswami

Semafor has announced new members and co-chairs of the Global Advisory Board for Silicon Valley & The World, a first-of-its-kind, multiyear initiative connecting the leaders building transformative technologies with the policymakers shaping their deployment.

As the board expands, Sam Altman joins Silicon Valley & The World as a co-chair. The expanded board includes more than 50 global figures, among them Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, Bhavish Aggarwal, Pedro Azagra, John Ketchum, Pratyush Kumar, Yann LeCun, Fei-Fei Li, Amjad Masad, Penny S. Pritzker, Kevin Rudd, Eric Schmidt, KR Sridhar, Mati Staniszewski, and Raj Subramaniam.

Designed to move the conversation beyond debate and toward action, Silicon Valley & The World will convene more than 350 founders, CEOs, investors, and policymakers in November, bringing together leaders with the ability to fund, scale, and implement new ideas.

➚ BUY: D-Sol. Stock bonuses given to Goldman executives five years ago and set to pay out this month will hand the bank’s CEO more than $100 million, his reward for a record share price.

➘ SELL: Diesel. Filling up big rigs now runs $1,000, likely raising the prices of the consumer goods truckers transport just in time for the midterms.

Sam Bankman-Fried joins the list of Silicon Valley objects-of-obsession getting the Hollywood treatment. Netflix released the trailer for The Altruists, which chronicles the rise and fall of FTX, and the now-convicted romantically entangled nerds behind it. The limited series joins a parade of tech shows and movies, including Sam Altman biopic Artificial and the Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything. (Bankman-Fried is a former Semafor investor.)