Good morning. Andrew here. Marc Benioff, Salesforce’s C.E.O., is facing a staff revolt after a joke he made about ICE backfired. During a speech at a company event in Las Vegas yesterday, he quipped that agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — a client of the technology giant — were in the building to keep tabs on them, according to news reports. More than 1,000 employees have signed a letter demanding that Salesforce stop pitching business to ICE, a direct challenge to a leader who has long championed what’s known as stakeholder capitalism. By promoting the company as an “ohana,” a Hawaiian term for family, rather than a neutral entity, Benioff has effectively given his staff a say on how Salesforce is run. (Contrast this with Palantir, which views national security contracts as a patriotic mandate.) Salesforce’s model has driven deep loyalty among employees — but it has also turned the brand’s corporate values into a weapon that employees can use when they disagree with leadership. What do you think is the best approach to giving employees a voice? (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)
Hiring slowdown?The S&P 500 is a tick below its record close last month. The economy is booming. And yet the White House and Wall Street are feeling anxious about today’s jobs report. The release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Eastern, comes at a fraught moment for the economy. In particular, fears about artificial intelligence disruption — and potential job losses — have walloped the stocks of software, insurance and now, wealth management companies. The jobs report could be a doozy. It will include annual benchmark revisions, which are expected to show that the government’s hiring figures in 2024 and 2025 were widely overstated. What people are expecting: “We’re going to see more of that kind of softer job growth that we saw in 2025,” Augustine Faucher, the chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group, told The Times, “but not a significant slowing from that point.” Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser to President Trump, sought to play down expectations. “We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like,” he told Fox Business yesterday, adding that Trump’s immigration crackdown would result not just in fewer jobs, but the need for fewer jobs overall. Here’s what else to look for in today’s report:
What will this mean for the Fed? The central bank will be looking for any sign that the labor market is stumbling. But two voting members of the rate-setting committee — Beth Hammack, the Cleveland Fed president, and Lorie Logan, the Dallas Fed president — suggested yesterday that they were inclined to hold interest rates steady for a while, no matter what today’s report shows. As for A.I.: Despite fears that the technology will lead to potentially huge white-collar job losses, both Anish Acharya, a partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and David Solomon, the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs, argue that such concerns are overblown.
The Epstein files remain center stage in Washington. Attorney General Pam Bondi is set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee today over the Justice Department’s handling of the investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who faces calls to resign over his ties to Epstein, acknowledged to lawmakers yesterday that he had visited Epstein at his Caribbean island in 2012, years after Lutnick claimed to have ended contact. And Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, identified six men mentioned in the files whose names the Justice Department had been redacted. Sam Bankman-Fried requests a new trial. The convicted founder of the FTX crypto exchange, who is serving 25 years in prison after the start-up’s collapse, filed a motion in Manhattan federal court seeking a retrial. This is not the first time Bankman-Fried has appealed his 2023 conviction — this time he is representing himself. Opponents to President Trump’s tariffs score a big win. Three House Republicans teamed up with Democrats to defeat efforts by G.O.P. leadership to delay any votes that would challenge the president’s signature trade move. It’s a sign that Republican support for the tariffs is beginning to fracture; Democrats plan to force a vote seeking to end the levies on Mexico, Canada and Brazil. A bidding war without price bumpsThe bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery between Paramount and Netflix has gone on for months. But despite the growing noise of the contest, one thing hasn’t gone up: the actual price per share that either bidder was willing to pay. Sure, Paramount offered additional sweeteners for its takeover proposal yesterday. But it didn’t actually raise its bid above the $30 a share it last offered in December. Paramount is presumably betting that it can win over Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders with the promise of greater regulatory certainty. And Netflix, which has also modified its offer, probably won’t raise its bid unless Paramount does. “It’s an odd situation,” Eric Talley, a professor at Columbia Law School, told Lauren Hirsch. Paramount doesn’t see a reason to bid against itself — yet. In offering a “ticking fee,” a cash payout to shareholders worth about $650 million for every quarter its deal doesn’t close on time beginning January 2027, the company is trying to show that its deal can get done quickly. The company has argued that its bid has more regulatory certainty. As evidence, Paramount has disclosed that it complied with all requests in the Justice Department’s antitrust review and that it has received clearance from German regulators. And while Paramount says it doesn’t need President Trump’s support to win regulatory approval — Trump has said he won’t weigh in — it doesn’t hurt to have the financial backing of Larry Ellison, the Republican megadonor. When might the regulatory outlook become clearer? A vote by Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders is expected to take place around mid-March. A lawsuit by the Justice Department seeking to stop that transaction being filed by then would be extraordinarily quick. What might be more plausible, if still unusual, would be the Justice Department expressing concerns about the Netflix deal or its clearing the Paramount one. Higher-priced bids don’t always win. Consider the sale of Revlon, which led to a famous rule in Delaware corporate law that requires companies to maximize shareholder value. (Paramount breached that rule three decades ago.) But Delaware law also gives boards leeway to use their best business judgment to do what’s best for shareholders. Family Dollar made use of that business judgment provision in 2014 when it sold itself to Dollar Tree instead of Dollar General over antitrust considerations.
The window for a crypto bill narrowsThe cryptocurrency industry could use a pick-me-up. Bitcoin is trading around $67,000 this morning, down some 45 percent since October — and well under its price when President Trump took office last year promising to be the “first crypto president.” Now, a bill that would establish a regulatory framework for digital tokens, long sought by the industry, remains stalled in the Senate as crypto and banking lobbyists joust behind the scenes.
Meetings at the White House: The Trump administration is raising the pressure to end a monthslong deadlock in hopes of reaching a deal before the 2026 midterm elections, which could hand congressional power over to the Democrats. Yesterday, representatives from the crypto and banking industries gathered for a closed-door meeting at the White House, the latest held by the administration over the bill, known as the Clarity Act. A major point of contention is the fate of so-called crypto rewards on stablecoins, digital tokens tied to the value of the dollar. Banks argue that the payouts are essentially unregulated interest payments that could drain billions from bank deposits. Crypto firms say banks are just trying to quash competition. Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, acknowledged on social media that he was at the White House meeting. Coinbase’s C.E.O., Brian Armstrong, led a revolt against a version of the bill that was headed for a vote in the Senate Banking Committee in January. The Trump administration’s tolerance for further delays appears to be thinning. “We got a few recalcitrant actors who said, well, it would be better to have no legislation than the legislation we don’t want,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a Fox News interview on Sunday, an apparent reference to Coinbase. “The president and his family want a favorable regulatory environment for crypto,” Amanda Fischer, a top official at the S.E.C. during the Biden administration, told DealBook. The administration knows “the clock is ticking” to put this bill into law, she said. Another political sticking point: Senate Democrats are expected to demand that the bill include ethics rules limiting U.S. officials from issuing, endorsing or profiting from crypto — an attempt to restrict the Trump family’s financial ties to the industry. That demand could land the crypto bill in permanent purgatory. DEALBOOK QUIZ Profits in the skyThis question comes from a recent Times article. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.) American Airlines is the largest carrier in the U.S. by flights and fleet size — but not by profit. The airline recently reported $111 million in net income for 2025 on a record $54.6 billion in revenue. Now American’s employees are demanding accountability for the poor performance. On Friday, the union that represents its 16,000 pilots said the company was on “an underperforming path.” And on Monday, the flight attendants’ union issued a vote of no confidence in American’s C.E.O., Robert Isom. By contrast, Delta Air Lines is highly profitable, thanks in part to strong sales of premium fares. What percentage of the U.S. airline industry’s profits did Delta earn in 2024 and 2025, according to data from S&P Capital IQ? We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
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