Foreword

Alyson Shontell

Editor-in-Chief

Good morning. With Chinese President Xi Jinping making his first state visit to the U.S. in 11 years, we’ve been keeping our eyes peeled for how the two superpowers plan to tackle global AI safety together (or not).

On Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged the UN Security Council to adopt international AI standards, warning that AI could pose a societal risk without meaningful human oversight. Earlier this month, Altman told me he thinks global collaboration is key to securing the future we want. He felt Presidents Trump and Xi could create a framework as simple as a one-page document, and if they did, it could rise to the level of a Nobel Peace Prize.

President Trump, for his part, posted on Truth Social ahead of the Xi meeting that "Super Intelligence" would be a big topic of discussion, but that he wants to “leave it exactly where it is.” And notably missing from the Washington welcome festivities for President Xi was anyone from Anthropic, which the Trump administration has painted as the face of AI doomerism and tied to Effective Altruism, a movement that has shaped much of the AI safety debate. Even the dinner seating chart was telling, with Nvidia’s (No. 16) anti-doomer CEO Jensen Huang, AMD’s (No. 131) Lisa Su, and Elon Musk (Tesla, No. 43) all seated at the head table with Xi and Trump, while executives from Meta (No. 17), Google (Alphabet, No. 5), and OpenAI were relegated to outer tables.

But President Xi’s remarks showed that some AI safety concerns are landing.

“China-U.S. cooperation may not solve every problem in the world, but without our cooperation, it would be hard to solve many of the world’s problems,” President Xi said at his White House welcome ceremony on Thursday. “Both China and the United States are leading nations in artificial intelligence. We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good, and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people.”

For more on the AI race, check out the new cybersecurity model and product OpenAI plans to unveil in the coming weeks, which was exclusively reported by Fortune’s Emily Forlini. Fortune’s Beatrice Nolan and Emily Forlini also wrote a helpful explainer on how the Effective Altruism movement went from fringe philosophy to the Trump administration’s AI villain.

Another thing to watch: Meta made a splash this week with the unveiling of its latest smart glasses, which leverage its recently released Muse personal AI agent. Muse shot to the top of Apple’s App Store and seemed to catch Amazon (No. 1) flat-footed. Amazon blocked Muse from linking to its products, but resistance may be futile—the era of AI commerce, as Fortune’s Sebastian Herrera writes, has officially arrived.

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Deals & Developments

Amazon (No. 1) has blocked Muse, the new personal AI agent from Meta Platforms (No. 17), from shopping on Amazon on users’ behalf after Meta declined Amazon’s request to exclude the site from the service. Amazon said Muse did not identify itself while browsing and raised concerns that the agent could capture or store customer credentials, despite Meta’s claim that it can use passwords without seeing them.
MGM Resorts International (No. 253) is considering an offer for Barry Diller’s People Inc., per the Wall Street Journal, after the media company withdrew its own more than $18 billion bid for MGM this week. People, MGM’s largest shareholder with roughly a 26% to 27% stake, had proposed in June to buy the shares it did not already own for $48.30 apiece.
Warner Bros. Discovery (No. 126) and Paramount Skydance (No. 155) have reached a settlement with 12 state attorneys general, a key obstacle to Paramount’s proposed $110 billion acquisition of WBD, though the agreement still requires court approval. Under the five-year agreement, Paramount would increase U.S. film production and theatrical releases, provide $47.5 million for workers affected by the deal, and establish safeguards for editorial independence at CBS News and CNN, among other conditions.

Overheard

“What is it he should apologize for? Why does he need to turn over a new leaf?”

—Bradley Tusk, founder of Tusk Ventures and an early investor in Uber Technologies (No. 92), on Travis Kalanick. Read more: How Uber’s ousted founder went from pariah to Silicon Valley hero

On earnings calls:

Costco Wholesale (No. 13) beat estimates with $95.72 billion in quarterly revenue, up 11.1% year over year. The company’s low-cost, members-only gas business helped drive traffic, and the company received a $184 million tariff refund, which it partially used to lower costs.
TD Synnex (No. 74) beat expectations with $21.56 billion in quarterly revenue, up 37.7% year over year. The company’s distribution business, which sells and distributes IT hardware, software, and systems, saw revenue increase about 35% year over year, while its Hyve Solutions segment, which designs and manufactures data center infrastructure for hyperscale customers, saw revenue increase 51.7%.
General Mills (No. 227) beat estimates with $4.39 billion in quarterly revenue, down 3% year over year, primarily because of the divestiture of its U.S. yogurt business. The company also sold fewer products in North America, particularly in cereal and snacks, due to lower demand, while pet food sales were relatively flat.
AutoZone (No. 229) missed estimates with $6.6 billion in quarterly revenue, up 5.6% year over year. Domestic commercial sales—the business supplying repair shops—rose 8.6% to $1.9 billion. The company also received a $96 million tariff refund and announced plans to open approximately 400 stores in fiscal 2027.

Earnings calls next week include: Jefferies Financial Group (No. 402) on Sept. 28; Carmax (No. 162) and Concentrix (No. 423) on Sept. 29; Micron Technology (No. 125), Jabil (No. 151), and Conagra Brands (No. 381) on Sept. 30; Nike (No. 99) on Oct. 1; and others.

See all recent coverage of Fortune 500 earnings calls.