• UK markets are a mess with yields on government bonds at historic highs and the pound tanking.
• Worries about inflation, public finances, and sticky interest rates are behind the chaos.
• Here's a breakdown of what's going on and what it means for Britain.

UK markets are roiling as wary investors prepare for trouble. Here's a closer look at what's happening — and what it means for the British people and their beleaguered economy.

Gilts and pounds

Yields on UK government bonds, or "gilts," have recently surged, while the pound has sunk against the dollar and lost ground versus the euro.

The benchmark 10-year gilt yield jumped from about 4.2% at the start of December to 4.9% on Monday, its highest level since 2008. Over the same period, the 30-year gilt yield leaped from around 4.7% to almost 5.5% for the first time since 1998.

Meanwhile, the pound weakened to a 14-month low against the dollar on Monday, with £1 worth $1.21 compared to $1.34 as recently as September. Sterling also revisited its November low against the euro with £1 worth 1.19 euros.

Prices and rates

Gilt yields have climbed and the greenback has gained against the pound because of the UK's bleak economic outlook.

Official estimates show the economy failed to grow in the third quarter of 2024. In late November, Goldman Sachs economists forecast a meager 1.2% growth rate for 2025, below the Bank of England's 1.5% estimate.

Annualized inflation spiked to a multi-decade high of more than 11% in October 2022, spurring the BoE to raise its base interest rate to 5.25% by August 2023 — a huge increase from virtually zero going into 2022.

Inflation has cooled significantly from its peak but accelerated to 3.5% last November, far outpacing the BoE's target rate of 2%. The central bank has trimmed its base rate to 4.75%, but signs of stubborn inflation have cut the chances of a flurry of further cuts this year.

President-elect Donald Trump's plans to impose tariffs and cut taxes once he enters office have also stoked global inflation fears, eroding hopes for rapid rate cuts in the UK and other countries.

Steeper interest rates encourage saving over spending and investing and make borrowing more expensive, which can ease upward pressure on prices but can also temper growth.

Public purse pressure

Investors are worried the UK government is overspending. It borrowed about £113 billion in the eight months through November 2024, raising the national debt to about £2.8 trillion — more than double the level before the financial crisis of 2008.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor (finance minister), has signaled she may rein in spending by making greater cuts to public services — but tightening the purse strings threatens to further weaken growth.

Concerns about persistent inflation, the public finances, and stagnation have hammered market sentiment toward the UK economy. Investors now demand a higher return to hold government debt, which has pushed up gilt yields.

Flight to safety

The prospect of higher rates for longer should benefit the pound because the currency's holders can expect to earn more interest. But that effect is being outweighed by the dollar's strength, underpinned by similar concerns in the US of stubborn inflation, sticky rates, and rising Treasury yields. Investors are flocking to the greenback as a haven asset, heaping pressure on the pound.

"Bond market turbulence, fears over unsustainable debt, and a lack of investor confidence in Britain's long-term prospects are all combining to pull sterling lower," Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, said in a note.

"The combination of a robust dollar and a weakening pound is accelerating the capital flight from sterling. Investors are turning to safer currencies and assets, as the UK appears increasingly fragile in this turbulent environment."

Flashes of the past

The upswing in gilt yields and the pound's retreat against the dollar evoke the crisis sparked by then-Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's mini-budget in September 2022.

The tax cut plans spooked investors with the prospect of reckless government borrowing, resurgent inflation, and interest rates staying higher for longer.

With some pension funds on the brink of collapse, the BoE stepped in to shore up markets and calm the situation. The chaos dissipated but Truss resigned a few weeks later.

This time, government officials have indicated that gilt markets are functioning normally and emergency intervention isn't warranted.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday that the government would continue to comply with its fiscal rules and reiterated his confidence in Reeves.

Budget pressure

The UK government funds itself partly by issuing gilts, so higher yields mean it has to pay more interest to bondholders. That raises its borrowing costs and eats into its tax revenue, leaving it with less money to spend on public services.

"The Chancellor already had limited wiggle room and the risk is that she may have to either cut spending or raise taxes," Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said in an emailed note.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, made a similar point in an emailed note: "Rachel Reeves is losing her fiscal headroom and her manoeuvre margin with every basis point rise in borrowing costs, and that muddies the UK's growth outlook."

Feeling the squeeze

Higher gilt yields mean steeper interest payments for households and businesses too, tempering the economy's growth prospects further.

Moreover, a weaker pound makes imports more expensive. That could fuel inflation, curb growth, pinch businesses that rely on foreign goods, and turn the screw on households already mired in a cost-of-living crisis.

Many consumers are struggling after sharp rises in the cost of food, fuel, housing, and other essentials since the pandemic — especially when they're paying more for their mortgages, credit cards, and other debts due to rate rises.

"Inflationary pressures remain persistent and elevated, while at the same time the growth backdrop, exacerbated by the recent budget, is deteriorating and straining government finances further," Mark Dowding, BlueBay chief investment officer at RBC Global Asset Management, said in an emailed note.

"Moreover, households will face rises in energy costs, water bills and council tax in April, adding to the squeeze in consumer budgets."

Savills recently estimated that nearly 700,000 UK homeowners face higher mortgage costs when their fixed-rate deals ended this year. Many hoped the BoE would steadily cut its base rate and mortgage rates would decline.

"But now, the newly elected Labour government, which promised to rescue the country, improve finances, and boost growth, faces its own reckoning," Ozkardeskaya wrote.

"To deliver on its ambitions, it needs market support — a resource proving elusive. Without it, borrowing costs will spiral higher, forcing tougher choices: more taxes, less spending, and weaker growth. And none of that bodes well for the pound."

• The "Donald of Dubai" now ranks in the world's 200 richest people with a net worth of $13 billion.
• Hussain Sajwani joined Trump last week to say he'd invest $20 billion in US data centers.
• Sajwani is a longtime Trump associate and an investor in Elon Musk's SpaceX and xAI.

A real estate tycoon dubbed the "Donald of Dubai" has shot up the ranks of the world's wealthiest people, securing a top-200 spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Hussain Sajwani, an associate of both President-elect Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, wasn't on the 500-person list at the end of 2024. He now sits in 179th place with a $13.1 billion fortune.

Sajwani joined Trump at a press conference last week to announce he'd invest at least $20 billion in US data centers, and cited the incoming president's pro-business policies for the move. Data centers serve a key role in powering cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

The Emirati billionaire now sits one spot behind financier Charles Schwab, and well ahead of fashion designer Ralph Lauren and Laurene Powell Jobs — the widow of Apple's late cofounder, Steve Jobs.

Sajwani has added $9.8 billion to his wealth in 2025 following Dubai's property boom, according to Bloomberg. That gain is beaten only by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the world's third-richest person, who's up an estimated $10.5 billion this month.

Sajwani is the chairman and founder of Damac Group, a private conglomerate that counts luxury real estate developer Damac Properties and fashion label Roberto Cavalli among the businesses it owns.

The 71-year-old partnered with the next US president to build the first Trump-branded golf course in the Middle East a decade ago. He's also invested in Elon Musk's SpaceX and xAI, press releases show.

Sajwani recently posted a picture on X of himself with Trump and Musk at a New Year's bash at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Trump's business ties have raised concerns of bias and conflicts of interest, especially after Musk emerged as one of his key donors, campaigners, and confidants in the recent presidential election.

• Michael Burry stayed quiet, bet big on Chinese tech giants, and saw one stock wager pay off in 2024.
• The investor of "The Big Short" fame boosted his Alibaba and JD.com stakes and bought into Baidu.
• The RealReal stock has surged more than sevenfold since Burry invested in early 2023.

Michael Burry kept a low profile, plowed money into three Chinese tech giants, and saw a long-standing stock bet pay off in 2024.

Who is Michael Burry?

Burry is best known for predicting and profiting from the collapse of the housing bubble in the mid-2000s. His contrarian wager was immortalized in the book and film "The Big Short."

He's also famous in financial circles for predicting market crashes and recessions, investing in GameStop long before the video-game retailer became a meme stock. He also bet against Elon Musk's Tesla, Cathie Wood's flagship Ark fund, Apple, a microchip fund containing Nvidia, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes in recent years.

Burry goes by Cassandra B.C. on X — a nod to the priestess in Greek mythology who was cursed to utter true prophecies but never to be believed.

Staying quiet

In years past, Burry frequently shared his thoughts on the markets, economy, and other subjects using X.

For example, he warned of the "greatest speculative bubble of all time in all things" in the summer of 2021, and told buyers of meme stocks and cryptocurrencies that they were careening toward the "mother of all crashes."

Burry even caught Musk's attention with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO calling him a "broken clock" in late 2021. Moreover, the investor set alarm bells ringing on Wall Street in early 2023 with a one-word post: "Sell."

However, Burry didn't post at all last year, and hasn't shared anything with the 1.4 million followers of his primary account since April 2023.

Chinese trio

Burry's Scion Asset Management revealed in a first-quarter portfolio update it had boosted its bets on Alibaba and JD.com, two Chinese e-commerce titans. It also established a small position in Baidu, a search giant that's been dubbed the "Chinese Google."

The Scion chief added to both the Alibaba and Baidu positions in the second quarter while paring his JD.com stake, but then ramped up all three wagers in the third quarter.

In the 12 months to September 2024, Scion quadrupled both its Alibaba and JD.com stakes. It went from owning 50,000 Alibaba shares worth $4.4 million to 200,000 shares worth $21.2 million.

It raised its JD.com position from 125,000 shares worth $3.6 million to 500,000 worth $20 million. Starting from scratch, it also amassed 125,000 Baidu shares worth $13.2 million in the nine months to September.

Those three stocks accounted for 65% of the total $83 million value of Scion's portfolio, excluding options, at the end of September. Burry hedged his highly concentrated portfolio by purchasing put options against the three stocks with a notional value of $47 million in the third quarter.

Burry, a value investor who hunts for bargains, may have pounced on the trio because he views them as undervalued. Chinese stocks have been hit by regulatory threats, concerns about the country's slowing economy and real estate crisis, rising geopolitical jitters, and skepticism about the government's stimulus plans.

It's worth pointing out that quarterly portfolio filings only paint a partial picture of an investor's holdings. They exclude shares sold short, private investments, foreign-listed stocks, and non-stock assets like bonds and real estate. They're also only a snapshot of the portfolio on a single day in a three-month period.

Patience pays off

Apart from Alibaba and JD.com, the only stock that Scion held onto for all of 2024 was The RealReal, an online luxury goods marketplace.

The stock has featured in Scion's portfolio since the first quarter of 2023, when the firm owned about 684,000 shares worth about $862,000, or $1.26 each.

Scion still owned 500,000 shares at the end of September, worth nearly $1.6 million at that time. The stock has jumped from a little over $3 then to $8.73 at Wednesday's close.

The upshot is Burry has likely made several times his money on The RealReal, especially if he was still holding the stock when it surged last quarter.

• Meta is moving its safety and content moderation teams from California to Texas and other states.
• CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the shifts would help address concerns of bias and over-censorship.
• Zuckerberg's Meta appears to be following the lead of Elon Musk's X in prioritizing free speech.

Mark Zuckerberg is moving Meta's platform security and content oversight teams out of California and shifting staff who review posts to Texas in a bid to combat concerns about liberal bias and over-censorship at his social-media empire.

The CEO of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads' parent company said on Tuesday that the moves would help return Meta to its "roots around free expression and giving people voice on our platforms."

Zuckerberg wrote that Meta would "move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, and our US content review to Texas. This will help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content."

California is widely recognized as a progressive state while Texas is traditionally conservative. Zuckerberg likely hopes that shifting oversight of his social networks to red states like Texas will help assuage claims that blue-state liberals are silencing conservative voices.

Meta's chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, confirmed the changes in a blog post, writing that the company will relocate the teams "that write our content policies and review content out of California to Texas and other US locations."

He told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday that Meta was seeking to "rebalance" and "rebuild trust" among users who felt their perspectives were not wanted on its networks.

"We want to make sure that they understand that their views are welcome and that we're providing a space for them to come onto our platforms, engage, express themselves, engage in the important issues of the day or not in the important issues of the day and just whatever it is they want to talk about and share," Kaplan said.

Zuckerberg, Meta's billionaire cofounder and largest shareholder, also laid out plans to replace fact-checkers with Community Notes. He will also lift restrictions on topics like immigration and gender, ease overall censorship and instead focus on stopping illegal and severe policy violations, return civic content to users' feeds, and work with President-elect Trump to resist pressure from foreign governments to make US companies censor more.

Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter in late 2022 and rebranded it X, has made free expression a priority on his platform and spearheaded the use of Community Notes as a substitute for fact-checking and censorship.

Musk also shut X's headquarters in San Francisco last fall in favor of operating the company out of Bastrop, Texas.

• Mark Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang have jointly become $28 billion wealthier this year.
• Meta and Nvidia shares surged during the first three trading days of 2025 on fresh AI excitement.
• Zuckerberg and Huang's combined wealth rose by almost $150 billion in 2024.

Mark Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang have jointly grown $28 billion richer in just the first three trading days of this year, meaning they're worth $350 billion combined — more than Bank of America.

The Meta CEO has gained about $15 billion this year, while the Nvidia CEO's wealth has risen by about $13 billion. Their flying start has made them the biggest wealth gainers on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index so far in 2025, but other big names in tech aren't far behind.

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao was up about $12 billion at Monday's close, followed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with an $8 billion increase, and Alphabet cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, up about $6 billion each. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was next on the list at $5 billion in the green.

Zuckerberg and Huang's combined gain of $28 billion accounts for nearly half of the net $61 billion increase for the world's 20 richest people in 2025. The pair's wealth jump reflects a nearly 8% advance in Meta stock and an 11% rise for Nvidia this year.

Meta shares benefited from Wall Street analysts raising their price targets. Nvidia climbed on signs of strong demand for microchips and anticipation for Huang's keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday.

The Nvidia chief revealed new chips and a $3,000 AI supercomputer named Digits. He also announced partnerships in robotics, self-driving cars, and more independent or "agentic" AI.

Zuckerberg and Huang's personal fortunes grew by about $79 billion and $70 billion respectively last year, trailing only Elon Musk's $203 billion gain by Bloomberg's estimates.

The world's 20 richest people grew a combined $702 billion wealthier last year, lifting their net worth to above $3 trillion — a figure that rivals Microsoft's market value of $3.2 trillion.

Tech leaders including Meta, Nvidia, Tesla, Amazon, and Alphabet have surged in recent years, supercharging the wealth of their biggest shareholders, as investors bet they'll play pivotal roles in the AI revolution and capture a big chunk of the profits generated.

• A friend of Charlie Munger's says Munger doubled his money on a contrarian bet soon before his death.
• The friend, Li Lu, gave an interview in which he discussed Munger's careful approach to investing.
• Li also described dramatically different approaches to risk tolerance between Munger and Elon Musk.

Charlie Munger was still sniffing out bargains and scoring big gains at age 99, says a close friend of the late investing icon.

Munger, Warren Buffett's business partner and Berkshire Hathaway's vice chairman for more than four decades, died in late November 2023, about a month shy of his 100th birthday.

In a rare interview marking the first anniversary of Munger's death, Li Lu told the Chinese social network Zhenge Island that one of Munger's last moves was a contrarian bet.

"There was a stock that everyone disliked, and it might not be particularly politically correct," Li said. But that didn't stop Munger from studying the company and buying its shares, continued the Himalaya Capital Management founder, whom Munger once described as the "Chinese Warren Buffett."

"The week before he died, this stock had doubled from the time he started investing to that time," Li said. It's unclear which stock he was referring to. Li didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Li said the wager showed Munger retained his passion for investing until the end and "could still go against the market consensus and live to see this stock double." He said the stock remained "in the Munger family portfolio" and was "still performing very well."

Li was the only person apart from Buffett who Munger trusted to invest his family's money. He introduced Munger to BYD, the Chinese EV maker that's been one of Berkshire's best investments over the past decade.

Describing Munger's careful approach toward investing, in his interview with Zhenge Island he also seemed to allude to a story Munger had discussed at Daily Journal's annual meeting in 2017, saying Munger "read Barron's magazine every week for 50 years and only made one investment."

"In 50 years I found one investment opportunity in Barron's, out of which I made about $80 million with almost no risk," Munger said in 2017. "I took the $80 million and gave it to Li Lu, who turned it into $400 to $500 million. So I have made $400 to 500 million out of reading Barron's for 50 years and following one idea."

Munger added further details, indicating that the stock was an auto supply company named Tenneco that Apollo Global Management acquired in late 2022. He said that he made 15 times his money on the stock in about two years and that it took him only 90 minutes of research to pull the trigger after reading about it.

Lunch with Elon Musk

Li recalled a lunch with Munger and Elon Musk in which he said the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tried to win Munger's investment. He said the discussion showed their similar thinking on subjects such as batteries and science but also their stark differences in risk appetite. While Musk was willing to do things with only a 5% chance of success, he said, Munger "may need more than 80% chance of success before he will do it."

Musk has previously discussed meeting Munger. Early in 2023 he posted on X that "Munger could've invested in Tesla at ~$200M valuation when I had lunch with him in late 2008." Musk's automaker went on to become one of the world's largest companies and is now worth about $1.3 trillion.

"I was at a lunch with Munger in 2009 where he told the whole table all the ways Tesla would fail," Musk wrote in another post. "Made me quite sad, but I told him I agreed with all those reasons & that we would probably die, but it was worth trying anyway."

Correction: January 7, 2025 — This story was updated to reflect that it wasn't clear from Li Lu's interview where Charlie Munger got the idea for the contrarian bet that Li said Munger made at age 99. The story also misstated when Elon Musk posted one of his comments about Munger. It was in early 2023, not early last year.

• Warren Buffett paid tribute to Charlie Munger and pared his Apple and Bank of America bets in 2024.
• Berkshire Hathaway hit a $1 trillion market value and its cash pile ballooned to more than $300 billion.
• Buffett donated some $6 billion to good causes and updated his plan for post-mortem giving.

Warren Buffett had a year to remember in 2024 as he sold two of his favorite stocks, built his cash pile to more than $300 billion, and led Berkshire Hathaway to a $1 trillion market value for the first time.

The 94-year-old Berkshire CEO and legendary investor also paid credit to his late right-hand man, gifted more than $6 billion to good causes, and updated his plan to give away his fortune following his death.

Here are Buffett's 6 highlights of 2024:

1. Paying respects

In his annual letter in February, Buffett paid tribute to Charlie Munger, his business partner and Berkshire's vice chairman for more than four decades, who died aged 99 in November 2023.

"Though I have long been in charge of the construction crew; Charlie should forever be credited with being the architect," Buffett wrote, calling himself the "general contractor" who carried out Munger's vision for Berkshire.

Buffett also dashed hopes for a transformative acquisition anytime soon. Berkshire's vast scale means only a few companies in the country could move the needle, he said, and all of them have been "endlessly picked over by us and others."

"All in all, we have no possibility of eye-popping performance."

The investor also called out a rise in "casino-like behavior" in markets and appeared to take aim at trading apps like Robinhood once again. "The casino now resides in many homes and daily tempts the occupants."

2. Pilgrimage to Omaha

Tens of thousands of Berkshire shareholders descended on Buffett's hometown in May to attend the company's annual meeting and watch the "Oracle of Omaha" hold court for several hours.

Buffett told the crowd he'd sold a chunk of his massive Apple stake in the first quarter. He also compared artificial intelligence to nuclear weapons, and took responsibility for a losing wager on Paramount.

The Berkshire boss said he regretted not listening to Munger and betting big on Costco decades ago. He also raised the alarm on the national debt and budget deficit, dismissed foreign threats to the dollar, and declared he could earn a 50% annual return on $1 million.

3. Stocks, cash, and buybacks

Buffett and his team sold $133 billion of stocks in the first nine months of 2024, and bought less than $6 billion worth. In comparison, they sold a net $24 billion of stocks in 2023, and purchased a net $34 billion of stocks in 2022.

They spent less than $3 billion on buybacks between January and September last year, with none in the third quarter, after spending nearly $70 billion on repurchases over the previous four years (almost $52 billion of that was in 2020 and 2021.)

Ramping up stock sales and curbing buybacks helped to nearly double Berkshire's cash pile in nine months from $168 billion to a record $325 billion (or $310 billion after subtracting almost $15 billion of payables for Treasury bill purchases in the third quarter).

Berkshire's cash pile now exceeds the total value of the company just over a decade ago, and accounted for a hefty 27% of its $1.15 trillion of assets at the end of September.

Buffett and his colleagues have said they're stacking cash because they're struggling to find bargains with valuations at historic highs, and they don't mind keeping money out of an ebullient stock market.

4. Selling sacred cows

Buffett and his investment managers, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, made several striking changes to Berkshire's stock portfolio last year.

They pared Apple, their largest position, by 67% in nine months, reducing its value from $174 billion to below $70 billion. The sharp reduction shocked many as Buffett had showered praise on the iPhone maker for years, hailing it as "probably the best business I know in the world" and one of Berkshire's "four giants."

Buffett and his deputies also cut Bank of America, their no. 2 position, by about 26% between mid-July and mid-October, collecting more than $10 billion of proceeds. The sales lowered their stake from above 13% to below 10%, freeing them from having to disclose changes to the holding within a couple days. Their stake only dropped in value from $35 billion to $32 billion between January and September because the bank's stock price rose by around a fifth during that period.

Berkshire also revealed a near-$7 billion stake in insurer Chubb in its first-quarter portfolio update, trimmed holdings such as Capital One in the second quarter, and bought nearly 4% of Domino's Pizza in the third quarter while cutting several smaller holdings.

5. Giving billions

Buffett donated Berkshire shares worth $5.3 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four of his family's foundations in June.

He said those gifts meant he'd now given $55 billion to the quintet over the previous 18 years, based on how much the Berkshire shares were worth at the time of giving.

Buffett divvied up a further $1.2 billion stock donation among the four family foundations in late November, continuing a Thanksgiving tradition he started in 2022.

The latest donations reduced his number of A shares to a little more than 206,000, meaning he's given away almost 57% of his shares since pledging 99% of them to good causes in 2006.

6. Estate planning

Buffett unexpectedly published a near-1,500 word letter to shareholders alongside the news of his Thanksgiving gift.

In it, he reiterated his desire to pass along his incredible wealth to "others who were given a very short straw at birth."

Buffett revealed earlier in the year that he planned to put almost his entire fortune in a trust, and task his three children with distributing it to worthy causes after he dies. But in his mini letter in November, he acknowledged that his kids are in their late 60s and early 70s and might die before they can fulfill his vision.

The investor said that risk had led him to designate three potential successor trustees to be "on the waitlist" just in case.

Buffett also took stock of the astounding scale of wealth in America, where more than a dozen people including him are personally worth in excess of $100 billion.

"It has been mind-blowing — beyond the imaginations of Ford, Carnegie, Morgan or even Rockefeller," he wrote. "Billions became the new millions."

• The driver suspected of exploding a Tesla Cybertruck left a note saying that his act "was a wake up call."
• Authorities identified the driver as Matthew Livelsberger, 37, of Colorado Springs.
• Livelsberger had been an active-duty Army service member for nearly two decades, the US Army told BI.

The driver of the Tesla Cybertruck loaded with explosives behind Wednesday's Las Vegas blast was an active-duty US Army soldier who, a coroner said, committed suicide.

In a press release on Thursday, the Clark County coroner identified the driver as Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old man from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The coroner's report said the cause of death was the result of an intraoral gunshot wound by suicide.

Livelsberger was a master sergeant who served as a special-operations soldier, a US Army spokesperson said in a statement provided to Business Insider.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters on Thursday that the driver appeared to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound before the material in his truck exploded.

McMahill said authorities found a military ID and credit cards with Livelsberger's name on them inside the Cybertruck. They have also confirmed that he rented the Tesla vehicle in Denver on December 28, driving through parts of New Mexico and Arizona before reaching Las Vegas.

Spencer Evans, Special Agent in charge of the Las Vegas FBI Field Office, said the bureau has no information about any other suspects. There is no current evidence connecting Livelsberger to any terrorist organization around the world.

There is also no evidence that the Las Vegas explosion is connected with a deadly attack in New Orleans, McMahill said.

Authorities on Thursday said both Livelsberger and Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who is suspected of driving a rented truck into a crowd of people in Louisana, both served in the military and spent time together at what was then known as Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Bragg, now known as Fort Liberty, is one of the nation's largest military bases. There is no evidence that Livelsberger and Jabbar were in the same unit.

The LVMPD said in a press release on Friday that two phones were also discovered inside the Cybertruck. After detectives gained access to one of the phones, they are said to have found two "letters" that "include grievances regarding political, social, cultural, personal, and other issues."

In one of the letters, authorities said Livelsberger wrote: "This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call."

He added that the US was "terminally ill and headed toward collapse" and that he had acted in order to "cleanse" his mind of the "brothers I've lost" and to relieve himself of "the burden of the lives I took."

"There may be a lot more information that we recover that explains either more or shows a change in mindset at different times," LVMPD Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren said at a press conference on Friday.

A military background

Livelsberger served in active duty from January 2006 to March 2011, the Army spokesperson said. After a stint in the National Guard and service in the Army Reserve, Livelsberger returned to active duty in December 2012.

"US Army Special Operations Command can confirm Livelsberger was assigned to the command and on approved leave at the time of his death," the Army spokesperson said. "USASOC is in full cooperation with federal and state law enforcement agencies, but as a matter of policy, will not comment on ongoing investigations."

Livelsberger served in the Army for more than 19 years. A military official told BI he was an operations sergeant assigned to the 10th Special Forces Group in Germany but was recently on leave at home in Colorado.

The official added that Livelsberger had a clean record, "by all accounts was great," and that this would have been "out of character" for him.

The FBI said it was searching a home in Colorado Springs in connected with the incident.

"FBI Denver personnel and specialized teams will be on-site for several hours," the bureau said in a statement to BI. "This activity is related to the explosion in Las Vegas on Wednesday; due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, no further information will be provided out of Denver."

The Cybertruck had been filled with firework-style mortars and canisters of camping fuel, authorities said Wednesday. The driver was the only person killed. Seven other people were injured.

The vehicle explosion occurred hours after an attacker drove a rented pickup truck through crowds on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. That attack left 15 people dead, including the attacker, and injured dozens more.

Both vehicles were rented using the Turo app. Authorities in Louisana on Thursday also said the New Orleans attack appeared to be unrelated to the Cybertruck explosion.

On X, Tesla CEO Elon Musk praised the Cybertruck for limiting the destruction from the blast. McMahill said Musk has dispatched a team of Tesla officials to assist with the Las Vegas investigation.

Update: The first paragraph of this article has been updated to reflect that the driver of the vehicle containing explosives involved in the Las Vegas blast committed suicide, a coroner said.

Additional reporting by Ryan Pickrell and Kevin Tan.

• The world's 10 wealthiest people added more than $500 billion to their combined fortunes in 2024.
• The top 20 gained $700 billion and ended the year with a total worth above $3 trillion.
• Elon Musk scored a huge $203 billion gain, but other tech bosses also notched up big rises.

The richest people on the planet saw their fortunes surge in 2024 as the artificial intelligence boom, the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts, Donald Trump's election victory, and a robust economic outlook helped the stock market to roar.

The world's 10 wealthiest people grew more than $500 billion richer last year, boosting their combined net worth to just over $2 trillion — not far off the $2.3 trillion market values of Amazon and Google owner Alphabet.

Widen the lens to the top 20 names on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and the total net worth jumped $700 billion to above $3 trillion by the year's end, rivaling Microsoft's $3.1 trillion market value.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk led the pack with a $203 billion gain for the year, which lifted his personal fortune to $432 billion at the market close on December 31.

His net worth briefly touched $486 billion a couple of weeks earlier after Tesla stock surged to a record high and SpaceX's valuation leaped to $350 billion. At that point, his year-to-date gain of $257 billion exceeded the entire net worth of Jeff Bezos, no.2 on the rich list.

However, Musk wasn't the only one to notch huge wealth gains in 2024. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia boss Jensen Huang, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, and Bezos all grew between $60 billion and $80 billion wealthier as their respective companies surged in value.

Other Big Tech luminaries scored big gains too with Michael Dell, the founder of the eponymous computer maker, adding $45 billion to his fortune. Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin added $42 billion and $38 billion to their respective fortunes.

Tech leaders accounted for most of the wealth gains, but Walmart founder Sam Walton's three surviving heirs — Jim, Alice, and Rob — each grew more than $38 billion richer, thrusting the trio into the $100 billion club for the first time.

Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate owes scores of businesses like Geico and huge stakes in public companies like Coca-Cola, also gained $22 billion and ended the year on $142 billion.

Not everyone's a winner

There were a few wealth losers among the uber-wealthy, however. LVMH founder and CEO Bernard Arnault saw his fortune shrink from over $230 billion at its peak in March to $176 billion by the end of December, sending him from first place to fifth.

Indian industrialist Mukesh Ambani, Mexican telecoms mogul Carlos Slim, Indian infrastructure tycoon Gautam Adani, and L'Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers all lost money last year by Bloomberg's estimates.

The superrich mostly got wealthier because excited investors wagered the likes of Nvidia, Tesla, and Microsoft would post higher profits by playing key roles in the AI revolution.

The Fed also made its first cuts to rates after hiking them to curb runaway inflation in 2022 and 2023. That has benefited stocks by making them relatively more appealing versus fixed-income assets such as government bonds, and could boost corporate profits by encouraging spending and borrowing.

Trump's win in November pushed stocks higher too, as the former president had run on promises of pro-growth policies such as tax cuts and deregulation. Tesla in particular gained as investors bet Musk's close ties to the future president would benefit the automaker.

• Elon Musk used his fortune and influence to help Donald Trump win reelection in November.
• The Tesla and SpaceX boss is now championing insurgent right-wing causes in Europe.
• He's called for a far-right agitator to be freed from prison in the UK and condemned the prime minister.

Having tapped his vast personal wealth and marshaled his 210 million followers on X to help propel Donald Trump to election victory in November, Elon Musk has turned his gaze to European politics.

In a post on X late Wednesday, Musk called for the release of Tommy Robinson, a British far-right agitator, saying he was in jail for "telling the truth." Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was jailed last year for breaching a court order not to repeat false claims about a refugee from Syria. Robinson had been successfully sued for defamation over the claims.

Musk then posted that Britain should have an election — the most recent one took place in July — and claimed its government was reluctant to hold an inquiry into child sexual exploitation to protect the prime minister, Keir Starmer. He was the country's chief prosecutor when a series of high-profile court cases about gangs targeting children shook the nation.

The posts are Musk's most aggressive intervention in European politics and follow months of commentary, particularly on events in the UK and Germany.

On Tuesday, Musk urged British voters to back Reform UK, a populist party led by Nigel Farage, a key figure in the UK's 2016 referendum to leave the EU.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO — who has embraced conservative stances on issues such as immigration, diversity, and transgender rights in recent years — met with the conservative firebrand Farage in mid-December at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.

Farage later told the BBC that Musk was "fully, fully behind us" and open to donating to Reform UK if he could do so legally. The party has made no secret of its excitement about Musk and his potential financial support, with Farage describing him as a "bloody hero" in a recent interview with the UK's Daily Telegraph.

Musk has been a vocal critic of Starmer. In numerous X posts, he's called the country a "tyrannical police state" and suggested the nation was on the brink of civil war.

The tech billionaire has also thrown his weight behind the German far-right party the AfD, which has come out strongly against immigration and echoed Trump in calling for mass deportations.

The AfD holds about 10% of the seats in Germany's legislative body, the Bundestag, but it has made significant gains in recent years, including coming second in this year's European Parliament elections.

It is widely expected to win the second-highest share of votes in the Bundestag election in February and, like Reform UK, has welcomed Musk's support. Its candidate to become Germany's chancellor, Alice Weidel, said Musk was "perfectly right" when he said in an X post on December 20 that the party was the only one that could "save Germany."

Musk then championed the AfD in an op-ed published in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag on Sunday. The paper and Business Insider are both owned by Axel Springer.

Musk wrote that years of misguided policies by the main political parties had led to "economic stagnation, social unrest, and the erosion of national identity," and the AfD represented the "last spark of hope" for the country. He justified his German political commentary by pointing to his "significant investments" in the country.

Musk's Tesla Gigafactory just outside Berlin is the company's main European facility and employs close to 12,000 people. It produces components such as batteries, and the final assembly of the Tesla Model Y is completed at the factory.

The paper printed a response by its editor-in-chief-designate, Jan Philipp Burgard, on the same page as Musk's controversial column. Burgard wrote that "Musk's diagnosis is correct," but his claim that only the AfD can save Germany is "fatally flawed."

Germany has accused Musk of meddling in its election

Before the op-ed, Musk's posts on X in support of the AfD prompted a government spokesperson to accuse him of attempting to meddle in the election, Reuters reported.

The spokesperson said that Musk was free to express his opinions, however, he said, "Freedom of opinion also covers the greatest nonsense."

Friedrich Merz, the center-right Christian Democratic Union's candidate for chancellor, described Musk's backing of the AfD as "intrusive and pretentious."

"I cannot recall in the history of Western democracies a comparable case of interference in the election campaign of a friendly country," he told the Funke media group.

In his New Year's Eve message, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said Musk's support of the AfD was part of a "logical and systematic" campaign to weaken Europe and erode its regulatory system.

Several of Musk's businesses, most notably Tesla, are subject to European regulations and stand to benefit from reduced oversight. Tesla's plans for fully self-driving cars face increased hurdles in Europe, where regulations on autonomous vehicles are more stringent.

Musk has called Italy's leader a 'genius'

Musk has also spoken fondly of Italy's right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. In September, he called her a "precious genius" who was "even more beautiful on the inside than she is on the outside."

Meloni leads the Brothers of Italy party — which has roots in the post-World War II neo-fascist Italian Social Movement. She came to power in 2022, campaigning on a platform of lower immigration, tighter border control, and traditional values. At the time, she was described as Italy's most right-wing leader since Benito Mussolini.

Trump's agenda of tax cuts, tariffs, and deregulation would likely benefit Musk's companies. Tesla's stock surged after Trump's election victory. But it's less obvious what Musk and his companies would gain from the rise of those he backs in Europe.

Not only are AfD and Reform unlikely to form governments soon, both also have policies that could hurt Tesla.

The AfD has opposed the extension of Tesla's German factory, while Reform has pledged to reverse a looming ban on the sale of gas and diesel cars in the UK, which would benefit EV makers like Tesla.

The AfD is polling in second place at 19%, more than the 12.6% it won in the last election in 2021. Musk posted to X Monday that it would win "an epic victory." Whether it makes those predicted gains or not, the party will no doubt continue to welcome the support of the world's most outspoken billionaire.

• Warren Buffett has long recommended a low-fee S&P 500 tracker fund to amateur investors.
• Chamath Palihapitiya says it's become riskier as a handful of stocks now dominate the index.
• Buffett mostly steers clear of tech names but Apple has been his no.1 stock for years.

Warren Buffett preaches that picking stocks and timing the market are fool's errands for the vast majority of people. He says their best bet is to simply invest in a low-fee S&P 500 index fund and hold it for the long term.

But a handful of technology stocks have become so incredibly valuable that owning the market capitalization-weighted S&P 500 is basically a concentrated bet on those risky businesses, not a wager on the stock market as a whole, Chamath Palihapitiya says.

"This needs to be fixed or it will end in disaster," the venture capitalist and cohost of the "All-In" podcast said in an X post on Saturday. He was reacting to a chart shared by Kevin Gordon, a senior investment strategist at Charles Schwab, which showed the 10 most valuable S&P 500 companies accounted for 39.9% of the benchmark index's total market cap on December 20.

Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Broadcom, Berkshire Hathaway, and Walmart are worth around $21 trillion together — a big chunk of the S&P 500's roughly $50 trillion market cap.

"Average Americans buy S&P 500 index ETFs, in part, because Buffett told them to," Palihapitiya said. "They were told they would pay very little and get diversification in the 500 best companies on earth to ride out storms."

But the Social Capital CEO and early Facebook investor said the outsize weighting of a few stocks means that "when you buy an index of 500 companies, you're really buying 10 companies with 490 others thrown in."

Palihapitiya said the lack of diversification means that if Big Tech stocks take a hit, investors could suffer huge losses as the pain to their portfolios won't be tempered much by other holdings. Amateur buyers face a "rude awakening if this isn't addressed," he added.

It's worth noting that Palihapitiya has been widely criticized for promoting high-risk special purpose acquisition deals (SPACs) during the pandemic and showing little remorse when their value cratered.

Buffett, a value investor who strives to remain within his circle of competence, has largely eschewed tech stocks throughout his career as they tend to be expensive and he lacks expert knowledge of what they do.

Yet he's counted Apple as Berkshire's largest position by far for the better part of a decade, despite paring that wager in recent quarters. The famed investor and Berkshire CEO has also hailed Alphabet and Meta as extraordinary businesses.

On the other hand, Berkshire is extremely diversified, owning scores of businesses including Geico, See's Candies, and Pilot Travel Centers. It also holds billion-dollar stakes in listed companies such as Coca-Cola and Bank of America.

Buffett has previously shrugged off shareholders' concerns about his stock portfolio being overly concentrated in Apple. But he might feel less comfortable now than in the past with amateur investors buying an index that's so dominated by a few Big Tech names.

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are butting heads with Donald Trump's base over the H-1B visa program.
• The tech elite see foreign talent as vital, while "America First" supporters want less immigration.
• Here's what Paul Krugman, Robert Reich, and other economics gurus are saying about the debate.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have clashed with Donald Trump's MAGA base on the subject of legal immigration, specifically the H-1B visa program for skilled workers.

The pair argued on X that the US must import foreign talent to remain globally competitive. In a now deleted post, Musk seemed to say there weren't enough smart Americans to fill the most demanding tech jobs. In a separate post, Ramaswamy blamed the shortfall on a culture in the US that has "venerated mediocrity over excellence."

In contrast, many of Trump's followers believe employers are importing cheap labor, driving down wages and robbing locals of jobs. Under the banner of "America First," they want to radically reduce legal immigration so that more Americans get well-paid jobs in areas such as technology and engineering.

Economics gurus are divided on the topic. Here's a roundup of their views.

Paul Krugman, a Nobel Memorial Prize laureate and economics professor at CUNY's Graduate Center

"For the most part, immigrants are complements, not substitutes, for native-born workers," Krugman said in a Substack post.

"So original MAGA is wrong to claim that immigration is impoverishing 'real Americans' in general. But tech-bro MAGA is wrong as well as offensive in saying that we need foreign workers because Americans are stupid or lazy. Furthermore, the availability of less expensive foreign tech workers does reduce the incentive of tech firms to train a home-grown work force and undermines the political incentive to improve our education system.

"I'd still argue that something like H-1B makes America richer and stronger, especially given the spillovers generated by a successful technology sector. But Muskaswamy and friends aren't helping their case by insulting Americans' culture and intelligence."

Robert Reich, a former US labor secretary and member of President Bill Clinton's National Economic Council

"Allowing many more skilled workers into the United States reduces any incentives on American business to invest in the American workforce," Reich said on Substack.

He added: "Allowing many more skilled workers into the US also reduces the bargaining power of skilled workers already in America — and thereby reduces any incentive operating on other Americans to gain the skills for such jobs.

"And opening America to skilled workers also reduces the incentive on foreign nations to educate and nurture their own skilled workforces. Why should they, when their own skilled workers can easily migrate to America?

"The major beneficiaries in the US of opening the nation to skilled workers from abroad are CEOs and venture capitalists like Musk and [David Sacks], whose profits and wealth would be even higher if they could siphon off cheaper skilled workers from abroad."

Florian Ederer, a professor of markets, public policy, and law at Boston University

"How dare the US not kneecap itself and attract the best and brightest talent from around the world!" Ederer replied to an X post expressing skepticism about expanding the H-1B visa program and ending caps on green cards by country.

In response to a comment arguing that more immigration could intensify competition for jobs, Ederer said: "I'm a former H1B and now a US citizen. I'm an economics professor, a profession with a particularly large share of foreign workers. So this is literally what happens in my job."

Jeff Eisenach, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute

"Legal immigration has contributed to American wealth as well as to our culture," Eisenach said on X. "For example, Latino families are culturally conservative, educate their kids, create new businesses -- and make us ALL richer."

"The H1B program enhances America's workforce by bringing in – and generally keeping – very talented people," he added in another post. "And, these are not people who are competing for middle class jobs."

In a third post, Eisenach argued that if the H-1B program was being abused to bring in nontechnical workers, that's "obviously a problem that needs to be addressed."

• The world's wealthiest people have shuffled their ranks and seen their fortunes surge since 2000.
• Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, and Steve Ballmer held top-20 spots then and still do.
• Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg didn't rank in the top 20 less than 25 years ago.

Compare the wealthiest people on the planet today to a quarter-century ago, and it's striking to see how the fortunes have grown, and most of the names have changed.

Bill Gates topped Forbes' rundown of the world's richest people in 2000, the earliest list accessible using the Wayback Machine. The Microsoft cofounder's net worth has grown from $60 billion then to $105 billion at Tuesday's close — good for 15th place in the real-time rankings.

Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, Walmart heir Rob Walton, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and LVMH founder and CEO Bernard Arnault also made the top 20 then and still do today.

But retaining a top 20 spot has required them to grow dramatically more wealthy since 2000. For example, Ellison's net worth has more than quadrupled from $47 billion to $217 billion.

Buffett's fortune has grown more than five-fold from about $26 billion to $143 billion, despite the investor gifting over half of his Berkshire shares to good causes since 2006.

Walton and Dell's fortunes have more than quintupled in size from roughly $20 billion to well above $100 billion.

Ballmer and Arnault have notched even larger gains, with their net worths growing from about $16 billion and $13 billion each to $128 billion and $168 billion, respectively.

Meanwhile, SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son's wealth has only grown from about $19 billion to $30 billion, dropping him from eighth place to 59th.

Several other people have fallen out of the top 10. They include Gates' late cofounder, Paul Allen; Theo and Karl Albrecht, the brothers who cofounded supermarket giant Aldi; Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Al Saud of Saudi Arabia; and newspaper tycoon Kenneth Thompson.

On the other hand, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang now rank in the top 10.

While a $20 billion fortune would have landed someone firmly in the top 10 in 2000, a net worth of that magnitude barely cracks the top 100 nowadays.

The top 10 wealthiest individuals were worth a combined $275 billion in 2000, or about one-seventh of their $2 trillion in total wealth at Tuesday's close. The 20 richest people were worth $406 billion then, a fraction of the $3 trillion they're worth today.

Musk alone is worth $454 billion today, exceeding the combined wealth of the top 20 in 2000.

The consistency between the two lists shows how companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, Berkshire Hathaway, Dell, and Walmart have gained value over the course of decades, enabling their largest shareholders to retain their top 10 spots almost a quarter-century later.

But it also underscores how businesses like Amazon, Alphabet, Tesla, Meta, and Nvidia have skyrocketed in value and propelled their biggest backers into top 10 positions.

• Elon Musk has set his sights on MacKenzie Scott's charity work once again.
• The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said the billionaire's gifts to liberal nonprofits were "concerning."
• Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, has donated over $19 billion to charities since 2019.

Elon Musk has taken aim once again at MacKenzie Scott over the billionaire's charitable giving.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO shared on Monday an X post written by John LeFevre criticizing Scott. The author and ex-banker's post sounded the alarm on Scott's gifts to nonprofits focused on issues such as racial equity, social justice, immigration protections, and LGBTQ+ rights.

Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, has donated over $19 billion to more than 2,450 nonprofits since 2019 via her Yield Giving organization. Her net worth remains above $30 billion thanks to the rising value of her Amazon shares.

"So she's just getting started," LeFevre wrote.

Musk reposted the critique along with a single word: "Concerning."

The world's richest man, who stumped for Donald Trump and donated more than $270 million to help the former president win reelection, has blasted Scott's support of liberal causes before.

"'Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse' should filed be listed among 'Reasons that Western Civilization died,'" Musk said in a now-deleted X post in March.

About two weeks later, Scott announced she was more than doubling the size of her latest batch of donations to $640 million, spread across 361 organizations.

In May 2022, Musk said the Democratic Party was sidelining his companies because Scott had donated to political action committees "posing as charities." He also said that she disliked Bezos and that this was resulting in many other people "getting caught in the crossfire."

But Hans Peter Schmitz, the Bob and Carol Mattocks distinguished professor of nonprofit leadership at North Carolina State University, told BI in September that Scott was setting a powerful example for other philanthropists to follow.

Schmitz said Scott was giving strategically, investing more directly, and relying on consultants to ensure she gave to the best nonprofits in an area. He noted, however, that she was letting the recipients decide how to spend their gifts and hadn't tied up her fortune in a grant system or foundation.

• Elon Musk's xAI raised $6 billion in its Series C fundraising, the startup announced on Monday.
• The round's participants included Sequoia Capital, and Nvidia and AMD were strategic investors.
• The AI startup plans to use the cash to ship new products and build out its infrastructure.

Elon Musk's xAI has completed its Series C funding round, raising a total of $6 billion, it revealed in a Monday blog post.

Musk's artificial intelligence company said the participants included a16z, Sequoia Capital, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Fidelity, Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holdings, Oman and Qatar's sovereign wealth funds, California-based Lightspeed Venture Partners, Chicago-based Valor Equity Partners, Dubai-based Vy Capital, and UAE-based tech investor MGX.

xAI added that chipmakers Nvidia and AMD took part as strategic investors and "continue to support xAI in rapidly scaling our infrastructure."

Musk shared the news on his X platform, writing, "A lot of compute is needed." He also tagged xAI in a meme generated by xAI's Grok chatbot that riffed on a famous line from the movie "Jaws."

Musk was likely underscoring the vast amount of processing power needed to train and run AI models, which has fueled enormous demand for microchips and underpinned a roughly eightfold rise in Nvidia stock since the start of 2023.

xAI, founded in March last year, raised $6 billion at a post-money valuation of $24 billion in its Series B round in May. The Wall Street Journal reported in late November that it had raised a further $5 billion at a $50 billion valuation. It appears xAI ultimately raised a bigger round of $6 billion, but the valuation wasn't disclosed.

The startup highlighted its progress since May in its blog post, including its launch of Colossus — the world's largest AI supercomputer powered by 100,000 Nvidia Hopper GPUs, which xAI plans to double in size to 200,000 chips soon.

xAI also released version two of Grok, an application programming interface (API) for developers to build on its platform, its Aurora image generation model for Grok, and Grok on X.

The company said it's training Grok 3 and "focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that will leverage the power of Grok, Colossus, and X to transform the way we live, work, and play."

Musk's fledgling business said it would use the Series C funds to accelerate its infrastructure growth, ship new products, and speed up its research and development of tech that will enable its "mission to understand the true nature of the universe."

The offers and details on this page may have updated or changed since the time of publication. See our article on Business Insider for current information.

• The average American expects to spend over $2,000 on holiday costs this season, one survey found.
• Some respondents predicted they would be paying off the debts they accrue into May next year.
• Personal finance guru Dave Ramsey advised saving before the holidays and setting a strict budget.

The most wonderful time of the year often comes with a hefty price tag — and many people expect to be paying for it into next summer.

People's debt balloons "because they don't plan for Christmas, like it sneaks up on them, like they move it or something," personal finance guru Dave Ramsey told "Fox & Friends" last week.

Ramsey's comments were in response to a survey showing that the average American will spend over $2,000 on holiday-related expenses this season, including travel, gifts, food, and clothes.

The survey of 2,000 people was conducted in early November by Talker Research and commissioned by Achieve. A fifth of respondents said they likely wouldn't recover financially until May 2025 or later.

The personal finance guru and host of "The Ramsey Show" described the $2,000 figure as "mindblowing," adding that it was a large sum to spend "all in the name of happiness comes from stuff — and it doesn't."

People can stay out of money trouble by socking away funds each month in preparation for the winter splurge, Ramsey said. They can also avoid overspending by drawing up a budget for gifts and other costs and sticking to it, he added.

"The problem with Christmas is not that we enjoy buying gifts for someone else — that's a wonderful thing," the radio personality said.

"The problem is we impulse our butts off, and we double up what we spend," he continued, pointing the finger at retailers who are "great at putting stuff in front of us that we hadn't planned to buy."

The typical US adult expects to spend $1,012 on gifts alone this holiday season, up from an estimated $975 last year, according to a Gallup survey of at least 1,000 people conducted in November.

Pinched by prices

Household budgets could be squeezed this holiday season. Inflation surged to a 40-year high of over 9% in the summer of 2022 as the cost of food, fuel, housing, and other essentials jumped, and remained above the Federal Reserve's target rate of 2% in November.

The central bank rushed to curb price growth by hiking interest rates from nearly zero to north of 5% within 18 months, sending people's monthly payments for their credit cards, car loans, and other debts skyward. Fed officials have cut rates to roughly 4% since September, but recently indicated they only expect to make two further cuts next year.

The upshot is Americans are likely to face a combination of elevated inflation and steeper rates for a while yet, setting the stage for a costly Christmas.

• A secretary bought three shares of her company's stock for $60 each in 1935.
• Grace Groner reinvested her dividends for 75 years, and her stake ballooned to $7.2 million.
• Her employer, Abbott, shared Groner's story in a recent website post.

A secretary paid $180 in 1935 for three shares of her employer's stock. By the time she died in 2010, her investment had mushroomed to $7.2 million.

Abbott, a pharmaceutical company, gave a shout-out to the former employee in a recent post on its website.

"As we celebrate 101 years of dividend payouts, we're remembering one of the earliest Abbott investing success stories, that of Grace Groner, who worked as a secretary at Abbott for over 40 years," the post reads.

"In 1935, Groner bought three shares of Abbott stock for $60 each. She consistently reinvested her dividend payments and quietly amassed a $7.2 million fortune. Groner passed away in 2010, at the age of 100, and it was only then that her multimillion-dollar estate was discovered."

She gifted her entire fortune to a foundation she'd established in support of her alma mater, Lake Forest College. She earmarked the money to finance internships, international study, and service projects for students.

Groner hung onto her Abbott shares for over 75 years without selling a single one, despite several stock splits, and used her dividends to bolster her stake.

She was likely able to leave her nest egg intact for so long because of her simple lifestyle. She lived in a one-bedroom house, bought her clothes at rummage sales, and didn't own a car, the Chicago Tribune reported in 2010.

Her shares would be worth north of $28 million today, excluding dividends, given that Abbott's stock price has roughly quadrupled since 2010. The drugmaker's market value has risen to around $200 billion, meaning it now rivals Disney, PepsiCo, and Morgan Stanley in size.

• Elon Musk has had a big year with Tesla and SpaceX soaring in value, supercharging his net worth.
• He helped Donald Trump win reelection and intends to transform the US government in 2025.
• Scroll down for seven charts showing how Musk's 2024 played out.

Elon Musk has had a year for the record books.

His businesses have taken off, with Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, and Neuralink all touching new valuation highs. Their success has boosted Musk's net worth to above $450 billion for the first time, putting him over $200 billion ahead of the world's second-richest person, Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

Musk has also become a power player in US politics after wielding his cash and clout to help win Donald Trump a second term in office. As one of the president-elect's closest advisors, he's now gearing up to overhaul the US government.

The situation seems worse at X, formerly Twitter, after Musk's $44 billion takeover and reshaping of the platform sparked an advertiser exodus.

Take a look at Musk's 2024 in charts (all data is accurate as of Friday, December 20):

1. Charging ahead

Tesla shares have shot up as much as 85% this year, driving the electric vehicle maker's market value above $1.4 trillion for the first time. They've since retreated but continue to trade near record levels.

The automaker has benefited from market buzz around artificial intelligence — which it's harnessing to develop self-driving cars and humanoid robots — plus a robust US economy and the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates.

Investors are also betting that Musk's businesses will benefit from his close ties to Trump, which could translate into less stringent regulations, government subsidies, tariff exemptions, and more.

2. Reaching for the stars

SpaceX's valuation nearly doubled from $180 billion at the end of last year to $350 billion this month, based on the price paid by the company and its backers for employee shares in its latest tender offer.

Musk's rocket, spacecraft, and satellite communications company made several technological breakthroughs this year. For example, it plucked the first-stage booster of its new Starship out of the air using a massive pair of mechanical "chopsticks" in October.

3. Shifting fortunes

Musk's net worth slumped in the spring as Tesla stock tumbled, dropping below $170 billion at its nadir.

But it rebounded by over $300 billion to touch an unprecedented $486 billion on December 17, as Tesla hit fresh highs and SpaceX notched a $350 billion valuation.

4. Rise of the robots

Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, was only founded in July 2023.

Yet it notched a post-money valuation of $24 billion in May following its Series B funding round. That rose to $50 billion in November, reports say, meaning the maker of the Grok chatbot is worth roughly as much as Monster Beverage.

5. X marks the drop

It remains tricky to gauge the health of X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter that Musk took private in 2022. One way is to use Fidelity's monthly estimates of the value of its stake in the business.

The mutual fund giant's figures imply that X's valuation has crashed since Musk's purchase. The tech billionaire laid off a large part of the company's workforce and relaxed content moderation in support of greater free speech, triggering an advertiser exodus that hammered the company's revenues.

Regardless, Musk recently posted on X that the platform has roughly 1 billion active users, although around 40% of them only log on during important world events.

6. Trump train

Musk was one of the biggest spenders in the US presidential election, deploying over $270 million to back Trump's race for president, run ads against Democrats, and promote conservative viewpoints.

His starring role in Trump's victory and emergence as one of the president-elect's closest advisors and a co-chief of the new Department of Government Efficiency suggests that his investment in the election has paid off.

7. Building brainpower

Neuralink, Musk's neurotechnology company, was valued at $8 billion this summer, up from about $2 billion three years earlier.

The developer of brain-computer interfaces wants to allow people with quadriplegia to control computers with their thoughts. Musk released footage this spring of the first patient to receive one of its brain implants.

• Bernie Sanders says Elon Musk is using his wealth and political clout to undermine US democracy.
• Musk lambasted a government funding deal and said a shutdown would be the Democrats' fault.
• "Are Republicans beholden to the American people? Or President Musk?" Sanders asked on X.

Elon Musk is wielding his immense wealth and political power to pressure US lawmakers, shifting America from democracy to oligarchy, Sen. Bernie Sanders says.

In two recent X posts, the Vermont senator called out Musk's influence over Republicans and his warnings to legislators if they don't vote the way he wants.

"The US Congress this week came to an agreement to fund our government," he wrote late Wednesday. "Elon Musk, who became $200 BILLION richer since Trump was elected, objected. Are Republicans beholden to the American people? Or President Musk? This is oligarchy at work."

"Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is threatening to unseat elected officials if they do not follow his orders to shut down the government during the holidays," he said in a Thursday post. "Are we still a democracy or have we already moved to oligarchy and authoritarianism?"

Musk blasted the funding bill in question as bloated and overcomplicated and wrote on X that "any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!"

He threw his weight behind Republicans' alternative bill, hailing it as cleaner and simpler. Moreover, he posted that it would be the Democratic Party's fault if an agreement isn't reached and the government shuts down.

Both Trump's team and Musk have pushed back against the idea that he's pulling Republicans' strings. Musk has said he's only bringing things to the attention of his followers, and they're free to voice their support.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO's net worth hit a record $486 billion on Tuesday, up $257 billion from the start of the year — a figure that exceeds the fortune of the world's second-richest man, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Tesla stock has slid since then, but Musk was still worth $455 billion at Thursday's close.

As Sanders wrote, Musk's wealth surged after President Trump's election victory as Tesla stock rode a broader market rally, and investors wagered the automaker would benefit from Musk's close ties to the White House. Additionally, SpaceX was valued at a record $350 billion this month, boosting the worth of Musk's stake in the rocket company.

Sanders has called out Musk several times in his criticisms of wealth inequality, which often single out billionaires for having too much influence and paying too little in taxes.

"Never before in American history have so few billionaires, so few people had so much wealth and so much power," he said in a clip from "Meet the Press" that he recently shared on X.

"We can't go around the world saying, 'Oh well, you know in Russia, Putin has an oligarchy," Sanders continued. "Well, we've got an oligarchy here, too."

The progressive lawmaker has also clashed with Musk's Big Tech peers. Sanders recently told Bill Gates that he was a "very innovative guy" who deserved to be financially rewarded for his contributions to society as Microsoft's cofounder — but not to the tune of billions of dollars.

"How much do you deserve? Can you make it on a billion? Think you could feed the family? Probably. Pay the rent? Maybe," Sanders quipped.

In response to Sanders saying billionaires shouldn't exist in 2019, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, now the world's third-richest person, agreed that "some of the wealth that can be accumulated is unreasonable."

• The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate to between 4.25% and 4.5% on Wednesday.
• The central bank also projected two cuts next year instead of four, sending stocks tumbling.
• Here's how analysts, economists, and other experts reacted to the Fed decision and market reaction.

The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, bringing its decline since mid-September to 100 basis points.

Wall Street usually celebrates rate cuts as lowering borrowing costs drives spending, investing, and hiring. Reducing rates also signals inflation is under control, and makes risk assets like stocks relatively more attractive by trimming yields on safer assets like Treasuries.

Yet stocks tanked because Fed officials projected two cuts next year, down from four previously. Fed Chair Jerome Powell also said the central bank expects to ease its monetary policy more slowly in the months ahead.

Here's a roundup of how analysts, economists, strategists, investors, and other experts reacted to the latest Fed decision in their morning research Thursday.

Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown

"US markets played the part of Scrooge on Wednesday, tumbling as the Federal Reserve's hawkish tone dampened holiday cheer.

Investors should see this as a healthy spot of profit-taking rather than an end to the party, after what's been a fantastic run for markets since the US election."

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell

"Markets are normally good at reading the signs, but the sell-off on Wall Street last night would suggest investors had started on the Christmas sherry a bit early and were caught out by the Fed's announcement about where rates might go in 2025.

The 3% drop in the S&P 500 is a wake-up call that US markets are not a one-way ticket to the moon.

The fact futures prices are showing a rebound in the main US equities on Thursday would suggest we are not at the start of a full-blown market correction. Instead, it's more likely that investors are now sitting up and paying more attention to what could go wrong, rather than only focusing on the positives. That's long overdue and a healthy development."

David Rosenberg, founder and president of Rosenberg Research

"This is a Fed that really has no faith in its view at any time and is willingly reactive as opposed to proactive even though its actions affect the economy with long lags.

You would have thought that between the commentary and forecast changes that the world has changed dramatically since the jumbo rate cut just three months ago. It clearly does not take much to cause this Fed to swing its view around. I can guarantee that it will shift again."

Stephen Koopman, senior macro strategist at Rabobank

"'We had a year-end inflation forecast, and it's kind of fallen apart.'

Not exactly the confidence-inspiring line you'd expect from a Fed chair. But Jerome Powell's performance at yesterday's press conference wasn't his finest hour. In what might have been the most uncomfortable showing of his tenure, Powell ceded the stage to the hawks, visibly strained as he tried to sell a strategy he didn't fully appear to endorse.

Powell flagged inflation 'moving sideways' and 'higher uncertainty' around its trajectory. These admissions reveal a central bank increasingly unsure of its footing, with rates markets now expecting just one cut for 2025 (as we do), and with no real consensus on when that final cut would arrive."

Jamie Cox, managing partner for Harris Financial Group

"Markets have a really bad of habit of overreacting to Fed policy moves. The Fed didn't do or say anything that deviated from what the market expected — this seems more like, I'm leaving for Christmas break, so I'll sell and start up next year.

The good news is that this 10-day sell-off should lay the path for a Santa Rally leading into next week."

Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Northlight Asset Management

"Santa came early and dropped a 25-bps rate cut in the market's stocking but accompanied it with a note saying that there would be coal next year."

The market is forward-looking and ignored the good news of today's rate cut and instead focused on the paucity of rate cuts for next year."

Jochen Stanzl, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

"What was heard last night from the Fed as an accompaniment to the interest rate cut is a showstopper for the stock market.

The Fed is sending a clear signal that it has almost completed the phase of interest rate cuts. The year 2025 will be a significant break in the Fed's rate-cutting cycle.

The Trump blessing could quickly turn into a curse. If the market expects yields to rise further, it is unlikely that the Fed will intervene against these forces. If inflation data continues to rise in January and February, then that could be it for the interest rate cuts."

Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist for LPL Financial

"While the Fed is taking all the heat for today's sell-off, a reality check from overbought conditions, deteriorating market breadth, and rising rates was arguably overdue.

Overall, today's FOMC meeting brought back some unwanted clouds of uncertainty over monetary policy next year. At a minimum, market expectations have shifted toward a shallower- and slower-than-anticipated rate-cutting cycle. Technically, the near-term risk remains to the upside for 10-year Treasury yields, creating a likely headwind for stocks."

Jean Boivin, head of the BlackRock Investment Institute

"The Fed has poured cold water on already dwindling market hopes for generous rate cuts in 2025.

Given the risk of resurging inflation from potential trade tariffs and a slowdown in immigration that has been cooling pressure in the labor market, market expectations of only two more cuts in 2025 now seem reasonable.

We expected this policy outcome, so it doesn't change our recently upgraded view on US equities. US stocks can still benefit from AI and other mega forces, from robust economic growth and from broad earnings growth — and we see them outperforming international peers in 2025."

Isaac Stell, investment manager at Wealth Club

"With an economy that's going gangbusters and an incoming president with a fiscally loose agenda, you wonder why the Fed felt it necessary to cut.

Is this to curry favor with the incoming administration or is there a bump in the road the Fed can see that the rest of us are missing."

Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone

"The FOMC delivered about as hawkish a cut as they could muster up yesterday, and market participants were not particularly pleased about what they heard.

It was, though, a little perplexing to see such a violent market reaction to Powell's remarks, particularly considering how 'every man and his dog' had been expecting this sort of a pivot in the run up to the meeting.

It feels, though, as if markets have overreacted to Powell's message, and that we may have reached something of a hawkish extreme here

Consequently, I'd be a dip buyer of equities here, as strong earnings and economic growth should see the path of least resistance continuing to lead to the upside, offsetting the fading impact of the 'Fed Put.'"