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President Donald Trump had touted the Reflecting Pool update, one of many renovations in D.C. he ordered ahead of America's 250th birthday celebrations. View More

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., and FBI Director Kash Patel conduct a news conference at the Department of Justice on Monday, April 27, 2026.Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro on Friday moved to dismiss an indictment charging U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn with vandalizing the Reflecting Pool of the Lincoln Memorial, writing in a court filing that damage to the pool's sealant was the result of a "flawed installation."Pirro, in a court filing in D.C. Superior Court, said her office received information and evidence after the charges were filed that "significantly undermine the evidentiary basis for the indictment."Hearn had been charged with felony destruction of property in early July, with Pirro saying at a press conference that he "violently" ripped up part of the pool's liner with his bare hands.Hearn's attorneys accused the Trump administration of making the 67-year-old ex-Olympian a "scapegoat" for the expensive and troubled renovation, which President Donald Trump had frequently boasted about.After the pool appeared to continue leaking following its renovation, Trump repeatedly claimed, without providing evidence, that vandals had cut a gash hundreds of feet long along the bottom. But Pirro said in Friday's court filing that a "botched installation" was to blame.Prosecutors had presented a grand jury in D.C. with "evidence that damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by vandals" after receiving initial reports to that effect from the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Park Police, Pirro wrote.But after that grand jury returned its indictment against Hearn, the Interior Department provided "additional documents" showing that the damage occurring in June was the "result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings," Pirro said.She also blamed "the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026."Asked for additional comment, the U.S. Attorney's Office for D.C. told CNBC, "The motion speaks for itself."Hearn's attorneys told CNBC in a statement, "The Trump administration's case against Davey Hearn should have never been brought.""Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong," read the statement from lawyers Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann and Steve Levin. "The government's approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology," they said.The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.Four days earlier, Hearn's attorneys wrote in a court filing that the government's key grand-jury witness in the case "testified that the property was already damaged before Mr. Hearn allegedly touched it."In that same filing, the defense lawyers asked for the disclosure of the information that the government provided to the grand jury before it made the decision to charge Hearn.Pirro's decision to pack up her case may foreclose the possibility of that information being revealed.Her filing repeatedly and pointedly lays blame on the Interior Department for providing her office with shoddy information."DOI provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case," Pirro wrote at one point. "It was not until USAO-DC repeatedly reached out to DOI dozens and dozens of times that DOI slowly started trickling information to USAO-DC.""Had DOI been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment," she wrote. "DOI's failure to fully and accurately provide information to USAODC undermined the government's ability to abide by these responsibilities."The Interior Department did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.Pirro's motion to dismiss also provides new detail about issues that plagued the Reflecting Pool renovation and caused delays "almost immediately."She pointed to "a combination of very rainy and windy weather, repeated failures of testing on the sealing of the expansion joints, and delays in obtaining sealing product at the worksite.""The rush to complete the project led to hasty and botched work that was not remediated before the project was finished and the fencing removed," Pirro wrote.The Trump administration had awarded the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings LLC, a no-bid contract to work on the Reflecting Pool. Trump, in one of numerous instances detailing the renovation project to the press, said in April that he chose a contractor that had worked on one of his swimming pools.CNBC has requested comment from the contractor. A website associated with the company currently features a pop-up window with two Reflecting Pool-related updates, with the most recent one dated June 21."Atlantic Industrial Coatings in conjunction with the US Park Service has identified some areas in the Reflecting Pool that require repairs," the update reads. "These areas are a very small part of the massive 7 acre project, and do not indicate a failure of the liner." Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

OpenAI's Sam Altman and Nvidia's Jensen Huang were among tech leaders in Washington, D.C., ahead of a deadline the White House set in its AI executive order. View More

CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman (L) and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a working lunch with G7 leaders, G7 outreach partners, and global tech CEOs on innovation and AI, during the G7 Summit on June 17, 2026 in Evian-les-Bains, France. Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images When President Donald Trump signed his AI executive order in early June, he gave federal agencies 60 days to develop a key framework as part of its implementation. On Saturday, their time is up. The fast-approaching deadline of Aug. 1 has been the subject of much anticipation in Silicon Valley, where the debate over artificial intelligence regulation has been raging in recent days. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Nvidia's Jensen Huang were among tech leaders who met with lawmakers and Trump administration officials in Washington, D.C., this week, all trying to influence upcoming decisions. Trump's executive order, thin on details, asks AI companies to voluntarily submit their models to the government for evaluation ahead of their public release. The president tasked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other officials with ironing out the specifics. When asked for comment about the status of the framework, the White House directed CNBC to a social media post from spokesperson Kush Desai: "BREAKING: Trump White House to meet a deadline we set for ourselves."Representatives from OpenAI and Anthropic didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Altman told CNBC on Wednesday that he's seen a draft of the framework, and that he didn't have "anything specifically in mind" as far as proposed changes. He met with Wiles during his visit, and was also expected to meet with Bessent and Lutnick, according to reports. watch nowVIDEO1:5701:57Sen. Warner on open-source AI: I'm not sure this is a genie we can put back in the bottleThe Exchange The deadline lands during a tense moment for AI development in the U.S., as the tech industry's most powerful leaders weigh in on how AI should be regulated, and whether OpenAI and Anthropic, the leading model developers, should be able to exert outsized influence over the future. In recent weeks, the market has experienced a dramatic shake-up as so-called open-weight models, largely out of China, are showing how quickly they can advance in their capabilities. The models offer cost-efficient alternatives to the frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic, and allow users to download the technology, modify it and run it on the infrastructure of their choice. Those developments have prompted a fierce debate within the tech sector over whether the Trump administration should move to restrict or outright ban Chinese open-weight models. In almost unprecedented fashion, the world's leading tech execs have unified in opposing any potential ban. Nvidia's Huang supercharged the discussion on Monday by releasing a letter urging policymakers to avoid "premature restrictions" on open-weight models. Huang used it as an opportunity to make his debut post on X, formerly Twitter. Elon Musk, who controls X through his rocket company SpaceX, responded by saying, "This has my full support. Jensen is right."Microsoft, Meta, Palantir and dozens of other companies signed the letter. OpenAI joined later, but Anthropic did not, opting instead to outline its position in a separate blog post. The Trump administration hasn't officially shared its position on the matter, though former AI czar David Sacks, who still has influence in the administration, has been among the most vocal opponents of any sort of ban. According to Trump's executive order, the AI framework will involve a classified benchmarking process that will assess models' cyber capabilities and determine if they should be considered a "covered frontier model." It will also encourage companies to work with the government to determine the "trusted partners" that will have access to those models. A finalized framework could be welcome news for both OpenAI and Anthropic, which have had to navigate a murky model deployment process since Trump first signed the order. Soon after the executive order, Anthropic had to disable access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models to comply with an export control directive that was issued by the Commerce Department. Two weeks later OpenAI said it agreed to limit the rollout of its GPT-5.6 model series to a group of "trusted partners" at the request of the U.S. government. Both companies were eventually able to roll out their models more broadly."The government and private sector have worked together in a way we have never seen before and this foundation of America First is unprecedented," Wiles wrote in a rare post on X in late June. "Our shared priority remains: get the best tech deployed as quickly and safely as possible."WATCH: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to meet with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles this week watch nowVIDEO1:2801:28OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to meet with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles this weekThe Exchange Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Amazon, Microsoft and Google added hundreds of billions of dollars to their market caps, while Apple and Meta saw their market valuations fall. View More

In this articleMSFTAMZNGOOGLFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch nowVIDEO6:3906:39TD Cowen's Krish Sankar on Apple Q3 results: Expect memory issues to persist longerSquawk Box Wall Street is growing increasingly divided over AI's winners and losers after the world's largest technology companies reported earnings and affirmed or raised their capex forecasts, suggesting the spending spree isn't letting up yet. Nearly $2 trillion has moved this week into or out of the six megacaps that have reported earnings this season so far. The three biggest hyperscalers, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet, have all seen their market caps surge after posting strong cloud growth. It suggests that investors believe returns may be in sight after the companies committed to spend billions on AI. Microsoft gained over $600 billion in market cap this week, while Amazon and Alphabet both added more than $400 billion. On the other end, Meta has seen its stock plunge after earnings, as investors weren't sold on its AI investment strategy, erasing about $85 billion from its market cap this week. Apple suffered a steeper drop, losing more than $350 billion in market value, as the memory shortage weighed on its outlook. Tesla lost about $7 billion in market value after it went cash flow negative and forecast higher spending. AI spending among the megacaps is "trending" toward almost $800 billion over the next 12 months, Jason Greenberg, co-head of global tech, media and telecom investment banking at Jefferies, told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Friday. Investors no longer question whether people are adopting AI, or if there's real demand for chips and compute capacity, Greenberg said. "It's whether in the long term demand is going to be sufficiently profitable to warrant all of this investment," Greenberg said. "I think overall that's the real issue that we're struggling with right now." Read more CNBC tech newsAmazon posts 'booming' cloud growth, hikes 2026 capex to $220 billionApple earnings: Revenue tops estimates, but supply constraints weigh on guidanceChina's open-weight model lead exposes America's AI blind spotNew details in the OpenAI Hugging Face hack show how far agents will go: 'It's now remarkably easy' Apple's earnings, revenue and iPhone sales were all above market expectations; however, the company issued weak guidance for the current quarter, citing "supply constraints." Apple said revenue growth in the current quarter will be between 9% and 11%, missing analysts' expectations for 12% growth, according to LSEG.Apple shares closed more than 7% lower on Friday.The company is grappling with a huge shortage of memory, a key component in its devices, as well as competition for chip manufacturing capacity. This has led Apple to raise prices on the Mac and iPad, and analysts expect an iPhone price rise to come this year. Amazon, meanwhile, said revenue at its cloud computing business jumped 37% year-on-year in the second quarter, marking the strongest expansion since 2021. Its Amazon Web Services business is closely watched by the market, as this is where the company books most of its sales related to AI. Investors monitor this unit as an indication of the demand Amazon is seeing for its AI products. Amazon shares closed more than 15% higher on Friday as the company forecast its capital expenditures to hit $220 billion this year, up from a prior forecast of $200 billion, as it continues to invest in AI infrastructure. Investors have been scrutinizing spending from Big Tech on AI as concerns grow that these companies are spending ahead of demand. But Amazon's own cloud growth appeared to justify the company's capex.AWS's strong growth "is a clear indicator that its infrastructure investments are meeting market demand rather than outpacing it," Tracy Woo, principal analyst at Forrester, said in a note on Thursday. Amazon's stock has been a laggard in 2026 and is up around 4% year-to-date. Apple, meanwhile, has risen 23% across the same period. The iPhone maker is partly seen as an alternative trade to the tech players who have been spending heavily, as Apple has not gone on a huge capex expansion journey. Investors appear to be picking their AI winners during this earnings season, with the stock price moves of tech giants diverging. On Thursday, Meta sank 8% while Microsoft rallied 15% as investors took a different view on both companies' AI strategies.Meta pushed up the low end of its 2026 guidance range on capital spending, but the social networking company's co-founder and CEO didn't provide much clear information on cloud demand for the company's AI infrastructure. "I think there's there's a rising impatience, especially on Meta," said Hendi Susanto, portfolio manager at Gabelli, which held stakes in Meta and other large-cap tech companies at the end of March. "I think Mark Zuckerberg insists that, yeah, they are considering that alternative, but in the absence of confirmation during the earnings call, investors did take that negatively."— CNBC's Jordan Novet and Kif Leswing contributed to this report. Stock Chart IconStock chart iconApple and Amazon shares this year. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Amazon, Alphabet and Tesla all reported negative cash flow in the latest quarter, while Meta's cash generation plummeted by 91%. View More

In this articleMSFTTSLAAMZNGOOGLMETAAAPLFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch nowVIDEO3:1403:14Amazon soars on Q2 earningsSquawk Box Almost four years into the artificial intelligence boom, the world's biggest tech companies are still making grand promises about the future. The problem is, they're burning through their cash in the process. AI spending among the megacaps is projected to reach $765 billion this year, before rising to nearly $1.2 trillion in 2027, according to Goldman Sachs. Amazon boosted its capital spending forecast for the year on Thursday to $220 billion, the highest among the four hyperscalers.Amazon also reported negative free cash flow for the trailing 12 months of $7.6 billion, a day after Meta disclosed a 91% drop in cash generation from a year earlier. Last week, Alphabet said cash flow turned negative for the first time on record, a stunning development for one of the most profitable companies on the planet.Alphabet finance chief Anat Ashkenazi told analysts on the earnings call that free cash flow will remain under pressure as the company seizes on the "AI opportunity." With tech earnings season largely wrapping up this week — Nvidia is set to report on Aug. 26 — it's become readily apparent that AI investments are distorting balance sheets, even as industry leaders continue to tout the future benefits of their mammoth bets on new data centers and the chips and systems that populate them. One big reason that costs are rising more than previously expected is the memory crunch, caused by insatiable demand for AI processors that rely on memory supplied by a small set of vendors. Tesla CEO Elon Musk described memory pricing as "insane" on the automaker's earnings call last week, and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the "inflated price" of memory chips drove his company's capex guidance higher. Apple, which is spending far less than its Big Tech peers, is particularly susceptible to the memory crisis because the technology is a key piece of every consumer device. Apple has already raised prices on Macs and iPads, and many analysts expect iPhone price hikes later this year. watch nowVIDEO5:0205:02Apple is in ‘great relative shape’ compared to the rest of the market, says Arete's Richard KramerSquawk Box On Thursday, the company issued a weaker-than-expected forecast due to what CEO Tim Cook called "supply constraints." It's not a problem he expects to ease up this year. "If you look beyond September, we see the market pricing for memory continuing to increase, which could drive an increasing impact on our business," Cook, who's stepping down as CEO on Sept. 1, said on the earnings call. "And we're continuing to evaluate this." For Apple, memory is a revenue problem, as the company prepares for weaker consumer demand due to higher prices. But for the hyperscalers, it's becoming a huge cost hurdle as prices soar for the memory-hungry AI systems that they all buy from Nvidia. Musk went so far as to thank memory vendor Micron for giving the company "a very significant allocation on reasonable terms." Mixed reactions Investor reactions to the reports varied dramatically.Tesla and Alphabet both sank last week as they turned cash-flow negative and pointed to accelerated spending. Meta plummeted following its report on Wednesday due to a weak forecast and continued uncertainty surrounding its AI monetization strategy. Microsoft, meanwhile, had its best day on the market since 2008 as it coupled better-than-expected results with increased capex guidance. "MSFT has room to meaningfully re-rate," Wells Fargo analysts, who recommend buying the shares, wrote in a note to clients. The rally cut Microsoft's stock drop for the year to about 7%.Apple shares slid following its Q3 print as the memory shortage weighed on its outlook, while Amazon's surging cloud growth was a major catalyst for the online retailer's stock pop."Not only is the revenue growth dramatic, but the profitability is rising," Mark Mahaney, an analyst at Evercore ISI, told CNBC's "Closing Bell: Overtime" after the report. Mahaney said the growth rate for Amazon Web Services had been lagging Microsoft Azure and Google's cloud business, and that "this is just the breakout that the stock needed."Wedbush analysts said in a Friday note that Amazon's report was the "cleanest beat" among the hyperscalers it covers, while management offered the clearest explanation of how it will achieve returns on its capex spend."This clean beat and walk through are the factors in our view on the different share reaction between GOOGL and AMZN on what we view as similarly strong fundamental prints with raises in capex," the analysts wrote.But across the megacap landscape, none of the stocks — unless you include Micron — are having breakout years, despite healthy revenue growth. The muted market moves reflect growing skepticism over whether the massive AI buildout, fueled increasingly by debt, will ultimately pay off. Read more CNBC tech newsAmazon posts 'booming' cloud growth, hikes 2026 capex to $220 billionApple earnings: Revenue tops estimates, but supply constraints weigh on guidanceChina's open-weight model lead exposes America's AI blind spotNew details in the OpenAI Hugging Face hack show how far agents will go: 'It's now remarkably easy' Then there's the China conundrum. In recent months, a slew of Chinese AI labs have released new and updated AI models that are narrowing the performance lead held by OpenAI and Anthropic at much lower prices, playing into a popular trend as corporate America gets more frugal when it comes to spending on AI services.The so-called open-weight models can be downloaded, tweaked and hosted on whatever infrastructure the user chooses. With so much of the AI market built around OpenAI and Anthropic, which are both valued at close to $1 trillion on the private market, any potential threat to their business presents risks to the AI trade as a whole.In a report last week, Dana Harlap, investment strategist at JPMorgan Chase, asked the rhetorical question, "Is it all one big AI trade?" Harlap said the reaction to Google's report shows that Wall Street is scrutinizing spending. That's true even when companies beat revenue estimates, which Google did while reporting 82% cloud growth. "We're seeing the market become more critical — and more discriminating — ­across hyperscalers as investors try to separate AI winners from losers," Harlap wrote. "Long-term, the success (or failure) of the hyperscalers to generate an acceptable return on investment on their heavy capex investments will likely be correlated with the returns of the AI ecosystem."WATCH: Apple warns its strongest product cycle is outrunning supply watch nowVIDEO1:1901:19Apple warns its strongest product cycle is outrunning supplyThe China Connection Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Options traders and market makers in Chicago were quick to buy dips below 7,500 in the benchmark index Friday, but almost as quick to sell rallies above that level. View More

In this article.SPXSPYFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch nowVIDEO1:3201:32Options Action: Options traders fade early rallyOptions Action After a whipsaw two days of price action, bulls and bears are facing off again at a key technical level in the S&P 500. At the same time, an increasingly popular volatility-based measure of market breadth leans bearish.Options traders and market makers in Chicago were quick to buy dips below 7,500 in the benchmark index Friday, but almost as quick to sell rallies above that level. Slipping too far below could open the door for more sharp moves like the one on Wednesday that sent the S&P 500 to the lowest since mid-June, positioning data tracked by SpotGamma and Barchart suggest.Combined open interest of both puts and calls is highest at 750 on the SPY ETF, according to Barchart. A few points lower, at 745, is where both Barchart and SpotGamma data suggest market makers no longer act as a source of stability. That's where dealer hedging activity flips "negative gamma," meaning the dip-buying and rip-selling that's kept the S&P 500 coming back to 7,500 could start to erode."If SPX breaks below 7,450 we will look for a bigger downside move," SpotGamma founder Brent Kochuba wrote in a note to clients Friday. Kochuba added that selling short-dated calls around the 7,520 strike on SPX looked appealing. Stock Chart IconStock chart iconSPX in 2026 Another major factor contributing to the S&P 500's seesaw action for months around the same level is the stark division within the stock market's constituents. The polarization between AI tech stocks and underperforming sectors led one measure of market unison – Cboe's 1-month implied correlation index – to reach an all-time lows earlier this month, a sign to some the market was getting fragile. But index has since surged, going from a reading of 3.3 on July 10 to 12 this week, indicating a broader-based rally and firmer overall market. Case in point, when the S&P 500 fell on Wednesday following the fed meeting, only one stock in the index registered a 52-week low.The index, which measures the expected correlation between the top 50 stocks in the S&P 500 over the next month, touched 3.3 on July 10. After Wednesday's sell-off and Thursday's broad rally, the measure rose to over 12.That suggests the market is getting more balanced, though in previous selloffs in April and June, correlations went much higher before the market bottomed. The measure reached 20 in June, and 45 in April. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

The food delivery company is the latest to be asked to share details of AI use by two House committee conducting a joint investigation. View More

In this articleDASHFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT A DoorDash bag in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images U.S. lawmakers have requested information from food delivery company DoorDash on its use of Chinese artificial intelligence models, CNBC has learned, as scrutiny around American businesses' use of systems developed by China ramps up. In a letter obtained by CNBC, the chairmen of two House committees conducting a joint investigation into security implications of U.S. companies using Chinese AI models asked DoorDash to share "information and documents" relating to its evaluation and deployment of AI systems from China."DoorDash proudly supports American AI leadership and is working to ensure AI benefits Main Street, not just the biggest companies," a DoorDash spokesperson told CNBC. "We look forward to engaging with the Committees on how we safely and responsibly use AI, including American-developed frontier models and open-weight models."Rising adoption of China-built AI models has led to growing calls from U.S. lawmakers for strategies to combat the trend, including via an ongoing investigation from The House Committee on Homeland Security and the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.An initial step in the joint investigation was for the chairmen of those committees to send letters to Cursor and Airbnb, over their "use of or exposure to these risks" through AI developed in China. The letter cited a post on X by DoorDash founder Andy Fang that details how the company is delegating lower-level AI work to Chinese AI model Kimi K2.6, which is developed by Moonshot AI. Read more CNBC tech newsAmazon posts 'booming' cloud growth, hikes 2026 capex to $220 billionApple earnings: Revenue tops estimates, but supply constraints weigh on guidanceChina's open-weight model lead exposes America's AI blind spotNew details in the OpenAI Hugging Face hack show how far agents will go: 'It's now remarkably easy' DoorDash's AI research lab had said on X that it had seen Kimi K2.6 and Anthropic's Fable 5 vastly outperform other Anthropic models it had used, including "Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.8 harness at a cheaper cost.""The Committees recognize that U.S. companies, from large technology firms to startups, may evaluate and deploy PRC-developed open-weight models because they can provide competitive capabilities, lower costs, greater customization, and alternatives to reliance on a small number of proprietary model providers," the letter reads.It added: "Those practical considerations do not eliminate the need for risk-based safeguards or diminish the national security concerns associated with growing dependence on models developed by entities subject to PRC jurisdiction." AI arms race AI has emerged as a key point of rivalry between the U.S. and China, with both nations vying for supremacy in the field."The Chinese Communist Party is no longer just nipping at our heels in artificial intelligence; it is racing to close the gap in some of the exact capabilities that will shape the future of cybersecurity," Andrew Garbarino, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, previously told CNBC."Recent reporting that a Chinese open-weight model can match leading U.S. models in certain vulnerability discovery and cybersecurity tasks is highly alarming," said Garbarino.Moonshot AI's release of open weight model Kimi K3 earlier this month claimed to have largely closed the performance gap with leading U.S. models.While some government departments have banned the usage of Chinese AI models like DeepSeek, adoption by U.S. companies is not prohibited. Tech chiefs, including crypto company Coinbase's Brian Armstrong and AI startup Lindy's Flo Crivello, have been publicly touting the use of models from China to reduce costs."An effective federal approach should therefore scrutinize U.S. companies' reliance on [People's Republic of China]-developed models and strengthen the availability, security, and competitiveness of American open-weight alternatives," the letter said. The availability of open weight models was thrown into the spotlight recently after it emerged that a cyber attack by rogue OpenAI models on Hugging Face was stopped by using a Chinese system. Open weight models can be downloaded, modified and self-hosted by companies. The most capable open weight models are Chinese made. The leading frontier models developed by OpenAI and Anthropic are closed."The Committees are also examining whether the United States has a sufficient open-weight AI strategy to ensure American companies and cyber defenders are not forced to choose between expensive or restricted U.S. models and cheap, capable PRC-developed alternatives," a committee aide, who asked not to be named as they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing probe, previously told CNBC. watch nowVIDEO10:4410:44America needs an open-source AI strategyTech Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Leonardo is eyeing further M&A as it races to expand capabilities and meet surging defense demand after raising its 2026 outlook. View More

In this articleFCT-ITHAG-DEDRSFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch nowVIDEO3:5403:54Leonardo CEO says ramping up to meet defense demand is keyMorning Call Leonardo's new CEO told CNBC he expects to pursue further acquisitions to support the company's long-term growth, as Europe's defense spending boom gathers pace."The ramping gap in how we fulfil the demand is really the key element to deliver to our customers what they need… both for our European arm and for the U.S. arm," Lorenzo Mariani told CNBC's Carolin Roth in Rome, pointing to M&A, including over the past few days, as an area of opportunity.Europe's defense industry is scrambling to meet soaring demand for new military equipment, amid Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and increased NATO spending targets. Alongside investment in factories and hiring, contractors are using acquisitions to add technologies, secure supply chains and expand industrial capabilities more quickly."What really matters today is accelerating all our processes," Mariani said. Defense dealmaking Mariani said the company would continue pursuing acquisitions and strategic partnerships to support long-term growth. His comments come as Leonardo has broadened its defense portfolio through acquisitions in land systems, cybersecurity and AI-enabled mission software.It completed a 1.6-billion-euro ($1.8 billion) acquisition of Iveco Defence Vehicles in March. Its U.S. subsidiary Leonardo DRS this week agreed to buy software company Raft for $450 million to expand its AI and mission software capabilities.Earlier this year, the group also agreed to acquire British cybersecurity company Becrypt.  More defense news‘Project Firepower’: Inside Rheinmetall’s gunpowder expansion as Europe races to replenish its ammunitionEurope’s defense boom faces a new test: Can it actually deliver weapons?Ukraine’s drone playbook is wreaking havoc in Russia — and upending where NATO wants to investTank maker KNDS postpones IPO amid market struggles for defenseDefense stocks plummet on reports Germany is scrapping warships; Rheinmetall stock down 18%Why Europe is suddenly betting big on drones Leonardo's Italian peer Fincantieri recently unveiled what CEO Pierroberto Folgiero described to CNBC as the company's "second M&A wave," announcing major stakes in four underwater technology companies as part of plans to build an international leader in the rapidly expanding underwater defense sector.Meanwhile, German defense electronics maker Hensoldt this year acquired Dutch optronics specialist Nedinsco to secure supply chains and expand production capacity. Record order backlog Like most of its peers, Leonardo reported a record order backlog in its earnings on Thursday, rising 30% year-on-year to 59 billion euros by the quarter ended June.The partly Italian state-owned company hiked its full-year guidance after reporting a 45% rise in new orders in the first six months of the year. It now sees earnings before interest, tax, and amortization of 2.21 billion euros, up from 2.03 billion euros previously.Leonardo is in a perfect position to benefit from increased European defense spending due to its multi-domain approach and differentiated offering, Mariani told CNBC. Defense stocks have been under pressure this year after a years-long boom following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.  Stock Chart IconStock chart iconDefense stocks' performance over the past 12 months. As government spending translated to soaring order books for defense companies, some investors now question whether valuations have run ahead of the industry's ability to ramp up production.Leonardo shares are up about 11% year-to-date, similar to the gains of the pan-European blue-chip index Stoxx 600.In its earnings, Leonardo said it now sees full-year new orders at 28.2 billion euros, up from 25 billion euros previously. Leonardo is leaning heavily into defense technologies as wars in Ukraine and Iran exemplify how modern war has changed, with an increasing emphasis on unmanned systems and AI-powered weapons. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

The experimental medicine ziltivekimab didn't translate into a statistically meaningful reduction in major cardiovascular adverse events, Novo said Friday. View More

In this articleNVONVOLLYFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Shares of Novo Nordisk fell as much as 10% on Friday after the drugmaker said a late-stage heart drug trial failed to reduce major adverse cardiovascular events, or MACE, compared to a placebo.While the experimental medicine, ziltivekimab, did show some biological effect, it didn't translate into a statistically meaningful reduction in MACE, defined as cardiovascular death, non-fatal heart attack or non-fatal stroke, for patients with certain diseases, Novo said in a statement on Friday.The missed endpoint is the latest blow to the Danish drugmaker, which is racing to restore investor confidence in its pipeline and ability to execute, especially in the challenging U.S. market."While ziltivekimab did not achieve the MACE benefit we had hoped for, this does not change our strategic commitment to cardiovascular disease," chief scientific officer Martin Holst Lange said.Copenhagen-listed shares were last seen down 7.4% while its American depositary receipts were 8.6% lower in premarket trading, on track for their worst day since February when the company released disappointing results from a head-to-head trial of its next-generation weight-loss drug CagriSema versus Eli Lilly's rival medicine. If losses hold, shares will turn negative for the year.Jefferies and Citi analysts both said the share move seemed disproportionate given ziltivekimab's small contribution to Novo's overall portfolio.However, "the result is strategically negative as it removes one of Novo's more credible non-obesity growth opportunities and again reinforces the company's reliance on commercial execution in obesity and sourcing external innovation for driving growth," Jefferies said. Stock Chart IconStock chart iconNovo Nordisk ADRs year-to-date. The study tested whether ziltivekimab, which blocks the inflammatory IL-6 pathway, could reduce the risk of a first major cardiovascular event compared with placebo when added to standard treatment.The trial involved more than 6,300 people who had atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease and elevated inflammation. Overall adverse-event rates were similar, although serious infections were more common with ziltivekimab. There was no difference in overall mortality. Cautious optimism Friday's blow came amid cautious investor optimism around Novo, mainly due to its successful launch of the Wegovy pill, the first oral GLP-1 for weight loss, in the U.S. in January.Eli Lilly launched a rival pill, Foundayo, in April, which has seen slower uptake. Over the summer, Novo launched the pill in the UAE and the U.K., as it looks to translate the U.S. success globally. Read more pharma newsNovo Nordisk's head start on GLP-1 pills forces investors to rethink Eli Lilly's dominancePrices, pipelines and patent cliffs: Inside pharma's big resetUK's biggest drugmakers see surprise profit bump, even as pharma grapples with U.S. policiesPharma bets a little-known form of cholesterol will underpin its next blockbuster heart drugs Novo shares are still far off where they were two years ago.Coming into Friday trading, the company's Danish shares had fallen 7% year-to-date and were down about 70% from their mid-2024 peak. The company is facing intense pressure from Eli Lilly's rival medicines, which have rapidly gained market share.Even with the pill momentum, which both Novo and Lilly say is expanding the GLP-1 market rather than eating into the injectables market, Novo remains under pressure as prices are lower and the pill still only accounts for a fraction of its total sales. watch nowVIDEO9:1209:12Novo Nordisk CEO: '80% of Wegovy pill customers' have never taken a GLP-1 beforeNews Videos Heightened competition has made Novo's pipeline increasingly important to investors. The company is counting on products including higher-dose Wegovy, oral versions of its medicines and CagriSema to help strengthen its market position.It's set to report second-quarter earnings next week, which will provide the next insight for investors on how the obesity market is shaping up. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

The prices for used electric vehicles have risen this year, which is unusual, experts said. Affordability and high gas prices help explain why, they said. View More

Tesla EVs recharge at a Tesla Supercharger station on July 2, 2026, in South Pasadena, California.Mario Tama | Getty Images Prices for used electric vehicles are doing something unusual — and the dynamic poses both good and bad news for consumers, according to automotive experts.Generally, used car prices depreciate over time. Indeed, as the popular saying goes, any car — new or used — starts losing its value as soon as it leaves the lot."That's just the law of used cars," said Andrew Garberson, the head of growth and research at Recurrent, which helps value used EVs. In the auto ecosystem, used EVs are notorious for their especially rapid depreciation, experts said. They've historically had "horrendous" resale values, said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds, a car research site. This year, prices for used EV have so far moved in the opposite direction, according to industry data. Read more CNBC personal finance coverageSome high earners will soon owe taxes on years of deferred capital gainsDoes the 4% retirement withdrawal rule still work? How to best maximize incomeFed leaves rates unchanged in July. Here's how it could affect your walletEVs aren't following the 'law of used cars.' What it means for buyers, sellersCNBC's Financial Advisor 100: Best financial advisors, top firms rankedCNBC Elite Advisors: Top ultra-high net worth wealth management firms for 2026 Prices for used EVs are up 5.1% from January to June 2026, according to a Recurrent analysis published this month. The trend continued into the second half of the year: Prices are up 7% year to date through mid-July, it said.Recurrent compared EVs according to the same make and model year across 108 combinations and weighted price growth according to inventory volume. "Used EVs are appreciating, which almost never happens," according to an e-mailed Recurrent statement about the analysis. Other auto analysts found a similar trend. The average transaction price for 3-year-old EVs — those with a 2023 model year — rose 6% during the first half of 2026, to $33,303 from $31,429, according to an Edmunds analysis conducted exclusively for CNBC. watch nowVIDEO4:4204:42Here’s a first look at Slate auto’s $25,000 modular carsDigital Original Price growth for used EVs has been broad-based, said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, the director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, a market research firm.Twenty-one of the 25 used EV models with the highest sales volume increased in price between January and June this year, she said. Overall, the price trend is positive for current EV owners looking to sell their cars, since they have better odds of receiving a higher price, experts said. "If you own one right now and you're debating selling, this matters to you a lot," Drury said. "If your ownership cycle is coming to an end with this vehicle, price-shop this thing."However, the trend poses a potential downside to would-be buyers, since a higher price tag could make the car less affordable, experts said. Why used EV prices are rising Interior of Rivian's new all-electric R2 SUV.Michael Wayland / CNBC Sustained price appreciation for used cars has happened before, generally when there's a shift in supply and demand patterns, experts said. This happened during the Covid-19 pandemic, for example: Consumer demand for used cars ballooned as automakers struggled to produce new cars amid shortages of important manufacturing components. But the price growth for used EVs this year has been all the more surprising because it has happened despite a high supply of used EVs hitting the market — which, all else being equal, would generally cause prices to fall, experts said. Recurrent expects more than 500,000 leased EVs to return to market as used cars this year, and even more next year, Garberson said. "What we're seeing in 2026 is different because we have more used EV supply than ever," Garberson said. In other words, strong consumer demand has acted as a countervailing force against high supply — a perhaps unexpected outcome given that Republicans eliminated a federal tax credit that had made EVs more affordable for households, Garberson said. The Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed in 2022, had made the tax break available through 2032. President Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill" curtailed it ahead of schedule, ending the tax break after Sept. 30, 2025."The narrative the last nine months has been, after the tax credits expired, no one would buy an electric car anymore," Garberson said.Of course, EV sales are still just a fraction of the overall auto market. New EVs accounted for 5.4% of total new-vehicle sales in June, while the market share for used EVs was just 2.4%, according to Cox Automotive data. 'It always comes down to affordability' Cars parked in front of homes in Daly City, California, May 19, 2026.Jason Henry | Bloomberg | Getty Images There are several factors juicing consumer demand for used EVs, experts said. Among them are high gasoline prices due to the Iran war, which have pushed more consumers to consider fuel-efficient options, experts said. Average gas prices in the U.S. were about $4.10 per gallon as of July 27 — up roughly 31% from $3.12 a year earlier, according to weekly data published by the Energy Information Administration. Fuel prices are "supercharging the EV demand," Drury said. The impact of gas prices has also increased demand for other fuel-efficient cars: Prices for 3-year-old hybrid vehicles were up 3% in the first half of the year, for example, according to Edmunds. watch nowVIDEO3:2803:28Why Costco's gas is always cheaperMoney Overall affordability is another big factor, against a backdrop of inflation that has remained above policymakers' target of 2% for five or so years, auto experts said. The dynamic has pushed more consumers toward the used car market more broadly. Used EV sales were up 20% in June versus a year earlier, while sales of new EVs were down about 28%, according to Cox Automotive data. Consumers can often get a newer EV — perhaps one that's 3 years old — at roughly the same price point as a comparable gas-powered car that's 4½ to 5 years old, Drury said. In that sense, consumers may see more value in the newer EV, since it likely has better technology and lower mileage, he said. "It always comes down to affordability in car sales," Rob Dell, vice president at Bob Ruth Ford, a car dealership in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, said during a recent podcast interview with Recurrent. "It doesn't matter if it runs on gas or electric." A Ford employee works inside a high-voltage lab at Ford's new Electric Vehicle Development Center in Long Beach, California.Courtesy Ford Additionally, consumers have more choice among EV brands and models across various price points than they did even a few years ago, experts said. That additional choice has bolstered consumer demand, they said.Prices have increased most for the lowest-cost used EVs as consumers seek out cheaper models, experts said. Used EVs under $20,000 have seen prices increase 9.4% in the first half of 2026, compared with 5.6% for those in the $20,000 to $30,000 range and 6.5% in the $30,000 to $40,000 range, according to Recurrent's analysis. It always comes down to affordability in car sales. It doesn't matter if it runs on gas or electric.Rob Dellvice president at Bob Ruth Ford Used EVs at higher price points saw declining prices over that period: a 1.2% drop for used EVs that cost $40,000 to $50,000 and a 3.3% drop for those over $50,000, Recurrent found. The total cost of ownership for an EV may also be lower than that of a traditional gas-powered vehicle, due to things like generally lower maintenance costs — something that dealers have gotten better at communicating to potential buyers, Valdez Streaty said. Consumers may also save on fuel costs depending on factors such as whether they can charge their EV at home and if they have relatively low electricity prices in their area, experts said. "Market dynamics right now are making used EVs a really good option for consumers," Valdez Streaty said. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

With the rise of secondary markets and a stronger liquidity environment, more companies are choosing to stay private for longer, according to experts. View More

Signage at a Jersey Mike's restaurant in Washington, July 20, 2026.Graeme Sloan | Bloomberg | Getty Images Five years after the initial public offering boom of 2021, public markets look a lot different as more companies are choosing to stay private for longer.In 2021, public markets saw a multitude of companies join the ranks. The Nasdaq said it welcomed 743 IPOs that year, while the New York Stock Exchange said it added more than $1 trillion in new market capitalization, marking the second straight year of record new listings. The biggest IPOs five years ago spanned a range of industries, including Coinbase, Roblox, Rivian, Warby Parker and more. According to research from Morningstar, the companies that went public in 2021 raised almost $500 billion — roughly double the number of deals and capital raised in 2020, a year of intense uncertainty amid the pandemic and lowered consumer and investor confidence.But since then, the IPO market has cooled significantly. Despite a blockbuster IPO from Elon Musk's SpaceX, far fewer companies are choosing to go public, and some of the ones that do have struggled to gain momentum in the current conditions. Two consumer companies, sandwich chain Jersey Mike's and clothing retailer Reformation, went public on Thursday. Both companies had largely uneventful IPOs, with Reformation remaining essentially flat for the day and Jersey Mike's opening $2 below its IPO pricing and closing down nearly 6%. They join just a handful of other consumer companies that have gone public in 2026, according to Renaissance, representing a tiny slice of the overall IPO pie. Experts say there's a range of reasons why companies are rethinking their liquidity and capital."There's under 4,000 public companies today, whereas 30 years ago, there was just under 8,000," said Mike Dinsdale, CEO of Powerlaw, a publicly listed fund investing in private companies. "The reason for that, I think, is access to capital, and then the idea that staying private and not having any transparency into what's happening, and then higher valuations on the public side."Dinsdale, who previously held executive positions at DoorDash and DocuSign, said access to capital and liquidity in nonpublic markets, along with the emergence of megafunds, have taken "the need out to rush to go public."He added it's a trend he's been seeing over the past 30 years, though the acceleration of family office interest in private companies over the past five years has contributed significantly to the trend as the private investment vehicles of the ultrawealthy look for new places to put their money.   Reformation Inc. signage during the company's initial public offering on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, July 30, 2026.Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images Secondary markets Some of the largest consumer and retail companies have remained private, like Publix Super Markets, Sephora and Chick-fil-A.According to Sunaina Sinha Haldea, the global head of Private Capital Advisory at Raymond James, private companies are benefitting from the rise of secondary markets."The secondaries market is acting as this pressure release valve to this artificial clock of having to go public," she said. "Nobody has to go public now because of the depth of this private secondaries market."Venture capital has also been booming. Jason Yeh, the co-founder of Patron, a venture capital firm investing in consumer companies, told CNBC that the volatility in the public markets coupled with the stagnant performance of public consumer and retail companies has likely added to the hesitation to leave the private sphere."There are very large asset managers, hedge funds and other types of investors that want to buy these later-stage stakes in these large companies, and they're able to push out having to go public longer, and you can get liquidity for earlier stage investors through that," Yeh said.His firm has partnered with a number of consumer companies like Sweatpals, Board, System Labs and more. He added that he believes a strong liquidity environment would mean both IPOs and acquisitions become desirable routes."It feels like we're on the cusp of a handful of companies that, theoretically, on paper, should have been able to go public over the last couple of years, but will be going public ideally in the next 12 to 18 months," Yeh said. 'The carrot and the stick' There are still compelling reasons for some companies to go public — an IPO is often a moneymaking move, like it was for SpaceX, which raised tens of billions of dollars when it went public. "I do think for companies with a really strong business model of generating a lot of cash flow, eventually they will go public," Yeh said. "Hopefully, the overall macroeconomic conditions are better when that happens, versus doing it into a weaker market."One of the biggest incentives to staying private is avoiding the pressure of quarterly earnings, which require revealing numbers to investors and potentially taking a hit from that visibility."In general, founders don't want to go public, the majority don't, because all of a sudden they have more visibility into what they're doing," Powerlaw's Dinsdale told CNBC. "The public now has access to numbers and it has opinions on what they're doing versus being more in control."To make the IPO market attractive again, he said he believes there needs to be both "the carrot and the stick," that would make it harder to stay private while also instituting a regulatory legislative change to incentivize going public. President Donald Trump has floated the idea of ending mandatory quarterly earnings reports, a move that was backed by the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year and would allow companies to report only twice a year instead. In a May statement, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said the current rules have too much "rigidity" for companies and investors. According to Raymond James' Sinha Haldea, the regulation that comes with being public is a "headwind" to going down that route."If you are a CEO of a fast-growing company and there's plenty of capital available, and you don't have to deal with the governance and the reporting structures and the quarterly clock of being a public company, why would you put yourself through that?" Sinha Haldea told CNBC.Sinha Haldea said it's both a financial cost and a resource cost to go public rather than staying within the secondary markets and accessing capital that way. But as the milestones for companies begin to get redefined, and IPOs no longer hold quite as much weight, the "why" behind going public in every board room is no longer as simple as it used to be.For that justification to change, and for more companies to mimic the trend of 2021 markets, she said the "operational burden of being public" has to change first."There is a lot of reporting compliance, litigation, dilution of management time that goes into being a public company," Sinha Haldea said. "That equation needs to change through regulation for the decision between private and public to become more neutral." Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.