• Warren Buffett published his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday.
• The investor touched on Berkshire's tax payments and urged the government to spend wisely.
• Buffett applauded Todd Combs for turning around Geico and praised Greg Abel's decisiveness.

Warren Buffett underlined the massive scale of Berkshire Hathaway's tax payments, urged the government to spend the money wisely, and hailed two of his successors in his annual letter to shareholders on Saturday.

The 94-year-old investing icon wrote that his conglomerate paid zero income tax in 1965 — the year he took control of the company.

"That sort of economic behavior may be understandable for glamorous startups, but it's a blinking yellow light when it happens at a venerable pillar of American industry," Buffett said. "Berkshire was headed for the ash can."

But in 2024, Berkshire paid $26.8 billion — the most of any US company in history and about 5% of total American corporate income taxes paid that year, Buffett said. The company has now paid in aggregate more than $101 billion of income tax to the US Treasury, he added.

Buffett urged the federal government to use the money to alleviate poverty and warned officials against overspending or destabilizing the dollar.

"Spend it wisely," he wrote. "Take care of the many who, for no fault of their own, get the short straws in life. They deserve better. And never forget that we need you to maintain a stable currency and that result requires both wisdom and vigilance on your part."

The billionaire philanthropist also said: "Paper money can see its value evaporate if fiscal folly prevails. In some countries, this reckless practice has become habitual, and, in our country's short history, the US has come close to the edge. Fixed-coupon bonds provide no protection against runaway currency."

Geico, stocks, and cash

The Berkshire CEO praised one of his deputies, Todd Combs, for revitalizing Geico since taking over as the insurer's CEO in 2020.

Geico's pre-tax underwriting earnings more than doubled last year to $7.8 billion, Berkshire's annual report showed on Saturday. The auto insurer earned higher average premiums per policy, saw lower claims frequencies, and operated more efficiently.

"Geico was a long-held gem that needed major repolishing," Buffett said, hailing last year's results as "spectacular" while emphasizing there was still work to be done.

As a whole, Berkshire's operating income jumped 27% to $47.4 billion last year, even as earnings declined at 53% of its 189 operating businesses.

Buffett and his team sold a net $6.7 billion of stocks last quarter. For the full year, they bought $9.2 billion of stocks and sold $143 billion worth, meaning they offloaded $134 billion of stocks on a net basis.

They didn't buy back any Berkshire stock in the fourth quarter. Their share repurchases for the year were only $2.9 billion, compared to $9.2 billion in 2023 and $7.9 billion in 2022.

The growth in operating earnings, stock sales, and lack of buybacks fueled an increase in Berkshire's cash pile to a record $334 billion as of December 31 (or $321 billion if you subtract $12.8 billion of payables for purchases of Treasury bills). That's roughly double the $168 billion of cash it held at the end of 2023.

In his letter, Buffett said that Greg Abel, his planned successor as CEO, has "vividly shown his ability to act" when opportunities to scoop up bargains arise.

Buffett also underscored that Berkshire's vast scale means it can take an entire year to exit a position in its stock portfolio. "We can't come and go on a dime," he wrote.

The "Oracle of Omaha" also joked about his lack of ability in many other fields besides investing in great businesses.

"Lacking such assets as athletic excellence, a wonderful voice, medical or legal skills or, for that matter, any special talents, I have had to rely on equities throughout my life," he said.

• The ailing German economy is a key concern for voters in Sunday's elections.
• Germany's reliance on Russian gas, rising Chinese competition, and lack of spending have hit growth.
• The government easing its "debt brake" and boosting spending could revive its economy, analysts say.

Germany's federal election this Sunday will be the latest European political race to pit establishment parties against populist upstarts, most notably the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its coalition partners against the Alternative für Deutschland (AFD), which counts Elon Musk among its fans.

The beleaguered German economy is bound to be a central issue. Friedrich Merz, the CDU leader expected to become chancellor, has campaigned on cutting taxes, red tape, and energy costs to deliver an economic renaissance.

Here's how Germany got to this point, the problems plaguing its economy — and how they could be solved.

Rise and decline

Germany rebuilt its economy after World War II to become a manufacturing powerhouse, building and exporting goods such as industrial machinery and high-end cars.

It has just under 84 million people and ranks as the world's third-largest economy, with a GDP of $4.7 trillion. That's behind the US at $29.2 trillion and China at $18.3 trillion, according to International Monetary Fund estimates for 2024. Germany's economy is bigger than of Japan at $4.1 trillion, the United Kingdom at $3.6 trillion, and France at $3.2 trillion.

However, the German economy contracted in 2023 and 2024 while all those peers grew, with the exception of Japan last year, and is set to lag behind its peers once again in 2025. The IMF forecasts 0.3% growth in real GDP this year, compared to 2.7% for the US, 4.6% for China, 1.1% for Japan, 1.6% for the UK, and 0.8% for France.

A key driver of Germany's slowdown is weakness in its core economic activities. Industrial output has tanked more than 10% since 2019, and about 350,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost over the same period, government data shows.

Auto giant Volkswagen, chemicals behemoth BASF, and steel and industrial goods titan Thyssenkrupp have shed more than $50 billion or about a third of their market value in the past five years, as investors have soured on German industry.

Myriad signs of economic decline are "fueling the sense that Germany's best days are behind it," Stefan Koopman, a senior macro strategist at Rabobank, said in a report this week.

The far-right AfD "capitalizes on this anxiety, blending restorationist rhetoric with extremist elements" and "channels economic and migration concerns into a broader narrative of national decline," he added.

In December Elon Musk said on X that "only the AfD can save Germany" — and has since posted about the party dozens of times, as well as interviewing its leader, Alice Weidel, on his social media platform.

Eggs in Russia's basket

Germany's past energy policies are key to explaining its economic pains.

For decades, Europe's biggest economy relied on cheap Russian gas to manufacture everything from steel to chemicals for export. However, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 caused energy prices to soar.

German officials also moved to punish Russia by reducing imports of its oil and depending on more expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) and renewable sources instead, which eroded their country's appeal to some foreign businesses.

Moreover, authorities began shuttering the country's nuclear power plants in 2011 after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, closing the final three in 2023. That decision made Germany even more reliant on Russian energy, making the weaning process even more painful.

From customer to competitor

Until about 10 years ago, German manufacturers saw China as a huge export market.

But since then, China has become much more of a competitor to Germany as it has ramped up exports of rival products including steel, machinery, solar panels, and electric vehicles.

Cheaper production costs and looser regulations in China have also led numerous German businesses to shift at least part of their operations there.

Germany has topped the UN's ranking of industrial competitiveness for 20 consecutive years, but China has jumped from 33rd to second place in the rankings over the same period, underscoring the threat it poses.

Frugal to a fault

German authorities have underinvested in areas such as energy, education, security, and infrastructure for years, which has weighed on national productivity and competitiveness.

A key reason is a constitutional "debt brake," imposed after the 2008 financial crisis, which limits the federal government's deficit to 0.35% of GDP. For comparison, the US deficit exceeded 6% last year.

"This policy is a handbrake on Germany's ability to support its economy and incongruous with policy in the rest of the world," Alison Savas, the investment director of Antipodes Partners, said in an emailed note.

Relaxing its spending constraints would allow Germany to stimulate its economy, meet the "pressing need" to invest in its public infrastructure, and satisfy likely demands for greater defense spending from the Trump administration, she added.

Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote on Substack that Germany's "obsession" with controlling its debt has meant it's gone from "role model to cautionary tale — a warning about the costs of rigid thinking."

Diagnosing the problem

Germany faces other challenges, including a shrinking workforce and aging population, a shortage of skilled workers, a lack of affordable childcare, and frustrating levels of bureaucracy.

Its myriad issues are "symptoms of a deeper malaise: chronically weak domestic demand," Koopman said in his report. The German economy "parasitized on foreign demand to sustain its own existence," he continued, adding that it's been shored up for decades by other countries' consumption, investment, and spending on security and stability.

The remedy might be large-scale government spending on everything from energy and defense to education, infrastructure, and technology, Koopman added.

"Cutting taxes, cutting red tape and/or or cutting costs won't be enough to cut it," he said, warning that if Germany fails to ramp up its spending, it "risks becoming a 'has been' in the global economy."

• Weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and Zepbound cost $900 to $1,500 for a month's supply.
• They cost so much partly because of the time and money it took to develop them, Eli Lilly's CEO said.
• Drugmakers want to capture a fair share of the value they create before patents expire, David Ricks said.

The latest weight-loss drugs including Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound have list prices ranging from $900 to $1,500 for a one-month supply.

David Ricks, the CEO of Mounjaro and Zepbound maker Eli Lilly, explained why these medications are so expensive on the "In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen" podcast this week.

1. Time and money

Developing a new drug costs about $3 billion, takes around 15 years, and has a high chance of failing, Ricks said.

The huge costs, long timeframes, and slim probability of success means "the return on that risk needs to be substantial," said the boss of America's 10th-largest company that's worth nearly $830 billion. The stock has risen 17% in the past year, and more than 500% since 2019.

Once a drug is approved and being used by millions, there will often be calls for cost-plus pricing, Ricks said. But without the prospect of large profits, "no one would have undertaken the risks to invent it."

2. Profit window

By the time their latest wonder drug is approved and hits the market, pharma companies only have about 10 to 12 years to cash in before their patent expires and rivals can produce cheaper generics, Ricks said.

Drug pricing reflects the limited timeframe they have to recoup their investment, earn sufficient profits to satisfy shareholders, and offset the cost of their many failed medications.

3. Broad benefits

When a drug patent expires, other drugmakers quickly roll out generics at a fraction of the price, stopping the inventor from earning monopoly profits but making the medication accessible to almost anyone who needs it.

"One of the great gifts of our industry is that everything we invent goes to zero for us and goes to infinity for society because generic drugs are such a great deal," Ricks said.

Ricks pointed to Prozac, which Eli Lilly introduced in the late 1980s. The antidepressant is sold around the world and "virtually free" as it costs only four or five cents a day in major markets, he said. He called it a "tremendous gift to society," and said his company deserves more credit for those long-term benefits while their drugs are under patent.

4. Fair share

When a new medication reduces costs for entire healthcare systems, its creators deserve a share of the savings, Ricks said.

He highlighted research suggesting the new generation of weight-loss drugs reduces worker absences, results in fewer hip and knee replacements, and can help with conditions ranging from alcoholism and depression to schizophrenia.

Their effectiveness in fighting conditions such as heart disease, liver disease, and diabetes could eat into 40% of the total healthcare costs of developed countries, Ricks said.

Eli Lilly aims to "capture some, not all, of the direct and indirect value we create," he added.

5. Ethics and regulation

Pharma companies could price their drugs based on what the market can bear, but Ricks said that would be unwise.

There could be "desperate people who need a medication to survive," meaning "you can get into price points that are really exorbitant and maybe make a short-term return, but you'll probably be either legislated or sued out of business if you pursue that forever," he said.

Ricks said his team consults with healthcare systems and weighs financial, scientific, and customer perspectives to ensure its prices reflect the value of its drugs without being exploitative and inviting legal or regulatory backlash.

• Elon Musk says AI could allow someone to beat Warren Buffett's March Madness bracket challenge.
• The xAI chief said Grok-3 model's research skills could be helpful in filling out a perfect bracket.
• Buffett insured a $1 billion contest in 2014 but restricts his version to staff, and with a smaller prize.

Elon Musk says AI could be the key to filling out a perfect March Madness bracket and winning Warren Buffett's challenge.

"So this is kind of a fun one," he said during Monday's launch for his startup xAI's latest model, Grok-3. "If you can exactly match the entire winning tree of March Madness, you can win a billion dollars from Warren Buffett."

Musk added it would be "pretty cool" if AI could help someone beat the monumental odds of creating a perfect bracket for the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, and a "pretty good investment" if they earned a life-changing windfall.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO later added that paying a monthly X Premium+ subscription to access Grok-3 — which could research the players and teams rapidly and in-depth — seemed appealing if "$40 might get you a billion dollars."

Musk was likely referring to Dan Gilbert's Quicken Loans, now called Rocket Mortgage, offering $1 billion in 2014 to anyone who could correctly predict the outcome of all 63 games — a feat with a probability of 9.2 quintillion to one. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate insured the challenge.

It's worth emphasizing that in 2016, Buffett brought the challenge in-house, cut the windfall to $1 million a year for life to any Berkshire employee who could pick a perfect bracket up until the Sweet 16, and promised a lump sum of $100,000 to whoever came closest.

The investor has run the contest almost every year since, and nobody has ever won the grand prize.

Even if Grok-3 could help someone build a flawless bracket, they would have to be a Berkshire employee to be eligible for Buffett's big prize, and they'd only win $1 million a year.

Musk is personally worth almost $400 billion as of Monday's market close, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Buffett is worth considerably less at around $150 billion, largely because he's gifted more than half of his Berkshire stock to the Gates Foundation and four family foundations since 2006.

• Elliott Management bet against Nvidia using put options last quarter, filings show.
• Paul Singer's firm had "at least $600 million in downside exposure" to the chip maker, one analyst said.
• Elliott told clients last year that Nvidia was in a "bubble" and AI was "overhyped."

Elliott Management bet big against Nvidia after telling clients the chipmaker's stock was in a "bubble" and artificial intelligence was "overhyped."

Billionaire investor Paul Singer's firm bought put options last quarter on 1.45 million Nvidia shares with a notional value of about $195 million as of December 31, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing revealed on Friday.

The activist-investing specialist also owned puts worth a notional $1.1 billion on the Invesco QQQ ETF, which tracks the Nasdaq-100 index. Moreover, it held puts worth a notional $4.2 billion on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, which follows the S&P 500 index. Nvidia is the second-largest constituent of both indexes, after Apple.

Between the three short positions, Elliott had "at least $600 million in downside exposure to Nvidia directly or indirectly" at the end of December, Gerry Fowler, head of European equity strategy at UBS, told Business Insider.

Elliott, which manages roughly $70 billion of assets, appears to have "specifically shorted Nvidia via put options" and bet against the largest US companies more broadly to hedge its risk on long positions such as Southwest Airlines and Pinterest, Fowler said.

However, Fowler emphasized the strike prices and maturities of the puts aren't disclosed, so the "cost of this protection could be quite low or high — we just don't know."

In a client letter obtained by The Financial Times last year, Elliott's bosses said that Nvidia and other Big Tech stocks were in "bubble land" and questioned whether the massive demand for Nvidia's graphics chips would last.

They also predicted that some AI applications were destined to always cost too much, function poorly, consume too much energy, or betray users' trust.

Elliott has only disclosed a Nvidia position once before, according to SEC filings dating back to 2001. It owned 5,000 shares worth $4.5 million at the end of March 2024 but sold them within three months.

Nvidia stock is almost flat this year after soaring just over 100% in the past 12 months, leaving it worth $3.45 trillion — second only to Apple in value.

Elliott's US stock portfolio was worth about $9 billion at December's close, excluding options and convertible debt securities. Its top positions included $2 billion stakes in Triple Flag Precious Metals and Southwest Airlines, and a $1.8 billion position in Suncor Energy.

It's worth highlighting that Form 13Fs only provide a snapshot of a firm's US stock holdings on a single day, roughly six weeks before their release. They also exclude shares sold short, stakes in private companies, foreign-listed assets, and non-stock assets such as gold and real estate, meaning they don't always paint a full picture of an investor's strategy.

Elliott declined to comment.

• Michael Burry of "The Big Short" fame pared two of his three bets on Chinese tech stocks last quarter.
• He invested in Temu-owner PDD before DeepSeek's release sparked a market rebound last month.
• Alibaba, Baidu, JD.com, and PDD made up 53% of Burry's portfolio going into 2025.

Michael Burry trimmed two of his three big wagers on Chinese technology in the quarter ending December 31, before DeepSeek's release in January sparked a massive rally in the country's stock market.

The investor of "The Big Short" fame also bet on a fourth Chinese tech titan last quarter, leaving him well-placed to capitalize on the excitement around the cut-price AI model.

Burry's Scion Asset Management pared its stake in Alibaba by 25% to 150,000 shares, and its JD.com position by 40% to 300,000 shares, in the final three months of 2024, a regulatory filing on Friday indicated.

The fund manager, who predicted and profited from the collapse of the mid-2000s US housing bubble, had quadrupled his stakes in both Alibaba and JD.com during the 12 months ending September 30.

Burry left his 125,000 Baidu shares intact last quarter, and there was no sign of the bearish put options he'd held against the three tech stocks at the end of September.

Moreover, he bought 75,000 shares of PDD, the e-commerce group behind Temu and Pinduoduo. That position was worth $7.3 million at December's close.

Burry's four China bets were worth nearly $41 million combined, or about 53% of the total value of Scion's US stock portfolio, on December 31. His previous three wagers were worth substantially more at $54 million or about 65% of the portfolio (excluding options) at the end of September.

The DeepSeek frenzy has fueled a 28% surge in Pinduoduo stock, a 47% gain for Alibaba, a 16% rise for Baidu, and a 19% increase for JD.com this year — great news for Burry if he's retained those stocks.

Burry made other striking changes to his portfolio last quarter. He exited Olaplex, Shift4Payments, and TheRealReal. In contrast, he bought into Canada Goose, Estee Lauder, Vans-owner VF Corp., Bruker, HCA Healthcare, Magnera, and Oscar Health.

The upshot was Scion's number of positions rose from 11 to 13, even as its portfolio's overall value dropped from $83 million to $77 million, excluding options.

Chinese stocks were under pressure before DeepSeek's release as investors fretted about regulation, slowing economic growth, a real estate crisis, mounting geopolitical tensions, and broad skepticism of the government's stimulus plans.

It's worth noting that Burry may have exited his China bets in the new year. Quarterly portfolio updates only provide a snapshot of a firm's holdings on a single day roughly six weeks earlier. They also exclude shares sold short, investments in private companies, foreign-listed assets, and non-stock assets such as bonds and real estate.

Besides his starring role in "The Big Short" book and movie adaptation, Burry is also known for issuing grim predictions of market crashes and recessions, investing in GameStop long before it became a meme stock, and betting against everything from Tesla and Apple to a microchip fund containing Nvidia and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes.

• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway cut its Bank of America stake and other bets last quarter.
• The investor's company exited two S&P 500 funds and only added one new stock, Constellation Brands.
• Buffett's conglomerate sold a net $127 billion of stocks in the first nine months of last year.

Warren Buffett and his deputies pared bets, exited wagers, and added only one new stock to their portfolio in the quarter ending December 31, signaling they once again struggled to find bargains in a buoyant market.

The famed investor's Berkshire Hathaway slashed its Bank of America stake to 680 million shares by December's close, down from more than 1 billion six months earlier, a regulatory filing revealed Friday.

As a result, Berkshire's ownership percentage dropped from over 13% to below 9%, and the value of what had long been its second-largest holding after Apple tumbled from about $41 billion to under $30 billion.

Buffett and his two investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, cut other banking stocks too. They sold 74% of their Citigroup stake, 18% of their Capital One holding, and 54% of their Nu Holdings position. In addition, they trimmed names such as Charter Communications, Louisiana-Pacific, and T-Mobile US.

The Berkshire trio exited Ulta Beauty despite only establishing the position in the second quarter of last year. They also dumped SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust and Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, two exchange-traded funds that track the benchmark US stock index, after buying into them a few years earlier.

On the other hand, Buffett and Co. established a $1.2 billion stake in Constellation Brands, the maker of Corona and Modelo beer, and other alcoholic drinks.

They also ramped up their Domino's Pizza wager by 86% and their Pool Corp. stake by 48% after opening both positions in the preceding quarter. Moreover, they topped up holdings such as Occidental Petroleum, Verisign, and SiriusXM.

Despite the slew of cuts, the total value of Berkshire's US stock portfolio inched up to $267 billion as several positions gained value. The company is set to provide more insights for investors later this month when it publishes its annual report along with Buffett's signature shareholder letter.

James Shanahan, a senior equity research analyst at Edward Jones, estimated in a note that "stock sales exceeded stock purchases for the ninth consecutive quarter, by more than $6 billion."

Cash pile

In the first nine months of 2024, Berkshire sold $133 billion of stocks while buying less than $6 billion worth. It also spent less than $3 billion on share buybacks in the period, compared to nearly $70 billion over the previous four years.

The combination of stock sales and fewer repurchases helped to nearly double the size of Berkshire's cash pile from $168 billion to north of $300 billion for the first time.

Buffett is known for plowing billions of dollars into public companies such as Apple, and acquiring massive businesses such as Pilot Travel Centers.

He's repeatedly said that high company valuations have made it harder to find compelling deals, and he's grown more comfortable keeping large amounts of cash out of the stock market. Higher interest rates have also made holding Treasurys more lucrative for Berkshire.

Berkshire's Class B stock closed Friday at just under $480, up about 6% this year and almost 18% over the past 12 months.

• Some young people are being priced out of the lives they imagined for themselves.
• Gen Zers are racking up debt and struggling to afford buying a home or having kids.
• There are still steps young people can take to help achieve their dreams, says an Experian executive.

Young people are being priced out of the lives they pictured for themselves. Many Gen Zers, born between 1997 and 2012, are racking up debt and fear "adult" milestones such as becoming homeowners and having children are out of reach.

"Generation Z is deeply concerned about the feasibility of achieving the lives they envision," Jennifer Rubin, a senior researcher at education research group foundry10, told Business Insider.

"Rising costs of living, tuition fees, and an unstable job market have made milestones like homeownership, financial independence, and even career stability seem more out of reach than ever before."

Burden of borrowing

Gen Z has a debt problem.

As a group, they have roughly 30% more credit card debt than millennials did at their age even after inflation, TransUnion data shows. They're also the most likely cohort to max out credit cards and become delinquent on payments, New York Fed data shows.

Alyssa Schaefer, the general manager and chief experience officer of Keybank-owned Laurel Road, a digital banking platform, said uncertainty about repaying student loan debt is "having long-term implications on young people's financial milestones."

She cited a survey commissioned by her firm in partnership with Luminary, a professional education and networking platform, and conducted by Kantar this past fall.

Of the 1,714 US adults with private or federal student loans surveyed, 79% said they struggled to save for emergencies or retirement, 75% said they couldn't invest, 52% said they couldn't afford to buy a home, and 35% said they were delaying having children. Most respondents were aged 25 to 44, while responses were collected from ages 18 to 65-plus.

Locked out

Owning a home feels painfully out of reach for many young Americans.

Census data shows homeownership rates dropped from almost 44% in 2004 to 37% this past fall, and the percentage of adult children ages 25 to 34 still living at home climbed from under 11% in the early 2000s to 16% in 2023. That's at least partly a function of home prices racing to record levels and mortgage rates surging to two-decade highs.

Enrique Martínez García, the international group head of the Dallas Fed's research department, told BI that slower generational progress has "profound" social and economic consequences.

People taking longer to partner up and have kids can choke population and economic growth, he said. Those who can't afford a home are missing out on a reliable wealth-building strategy that underpins overall demand in the economy.

Pricing out people also prevents them from moving across the country to where their labor is most valued. They may also have fewer or no children and slimmer retirement savings, Martínez García said.

Family matters

Whether it's paying for day care, building a college fund, splurging on family vacations, or simply covering the living expenses of a whole other person or multiple people, having children comes with plenty of costs attached.

"The young people we interviewed were definitely worried about whether they would be able to earn enough to have families," Roberta Katz, a coauthor of "Gen Z Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age" and a senior research scholar at Stanford University, told BI.

A 2023 Pew Research Center survey of childless US adults under 50 found that among those who said they were unlikely to ever have kids, 36% said a major reason was they couldn't afford to raise them.

Modern temptations

It's easier than ever to waste money when apps like Instagram and TikTok serve as virtual shopping malls, influencers urge their followers to emulate their lavish lifestyles, and digital payment services like Apple Pay and Afterpay make buying things quick and painless.

Keisha Blair, a personal finance guru and author, told BI the "convenience of digital payments and online transactions makes impulsive spending more accessible than ever" for Gen Z.

"Social media further amplifies this, exposing them to a constant stream of influencers and aspirational lifestyles, fostering a culture of instant gratification and heightened consumerism," she added.

Blair said that Gen Zers who wind up in debt and fall behind on their payments could do harm to their credit scores. That could prevent them from obtaining financing for a car or home, and frustrate their efforts to build wealth and become financially independent, she said.

Laurel Road's Schaefer told BI that Instagram ads are so precisely targeted at her that she often clicks through and buys an item. But when she fears she's making an impulse purchase, she'll leave the product in her cart for at least 24 hours to give her time to decide whether she really wants it.

How to achieve your dreams

Young people may feel like the odds are stacked against them, but they can still take "concrete steps to achieve their dreams," Rod Griffin, Experian's senior director of consumer education and advocacy, told BI.

He recommended taking control by drawing up and sticking to a budget, setting achievable goals, seeking professional guidance if needed, cutting back on impulse purchases, and eliminating "sneaky expenses" such as subscription fees.

Gen Zers can also disregard the goals of past generations and focus on fulfilling their own ones instead. Elizabeth Husserl, author of "The Power of Enough: Finding Joy in Your Relationship with Money," told BI that achieving classic adult milestones isn't always as rewarding as people expect.

Young people can be more intentional and prioritize "meaning, sufficiency, and fulfillment over relentless striving," Husserl said. Once they're clear about what truly matters to them, they might opt to co-live to cut their housing costs or pursue alternative education to avoid racking up debt, she said.

They can "redefine wealth on their own terms," perhaps by buying a house with a friend, or eschewing the corporate grind in favor of side hustles that offer flexibility and align with their personal values, she added.

• Rep. Ilhan Omar said she barely has "thousands let alone millions" in a X post about her net worth.
• The member of AOC's "Squad" said she doesn't own stocks or a house and still has student loans.
• Commenters on X reacted to Omar's post with everything from skepticism to appreciation.

Rep. Ilhan Omar said she hardly has "thousands let alone millions," doesn't own stocks or a house, and is still repaying her student loans, sparking reactions from X users ranging from disbelief to reluctant respect.

Omar is perhaps best known as a member of the "Squad" of progressive House members along with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, known as AOC.

The Minnesota lawmaker emulated her New York colleague by publicly discussing her personal finances this week, after an X user claimed both Democratic congresswomen were worth tens of millions of dollars, and accused Ocasio-Cortez of taking bribes.

Ocasio-Cortez replied that she's worth less than $500,000, doesn't earn any income beside her government salary, and doesn't own a house or trade individual stocks.

Omar said the user was lying about her net worth too. She pointed to her past financial disclosures as proof of her modest wealth, and added a facepalm emoji.

"Since getting elected, there has been a coordinated right-wing disinformation campaign claiming all sorts of wild things, including the ridiculous claim I am worth millions of dollars which is categorically false," Omar told Business Insider.

"I am a working mom with student loan debt. Unlike some of my colleagues — and similar to most Americans — I am not a millionaire and am raising a family while maintaining a residence in both Minneapolis and DC, which are among the most expensive housing markets in the country," she added.

The Democratic legislator was born in Somalia, moved to the US as a refugee in 1995, and has been a House member since 2019. She earns the standard congressional salary of $174,000 a year.

Omar's financial disclosure form last year showed up to $65,000 of assets, split across a congressional savings account and a Minnesota state retirement account. She also reported between $15,0001 and $50,000 of outstanding student loans dating back to 2005. Like Ocasio-Cortez, she might hold additional funds in accounts that don't need to be disclosed.

The form also showed funds attributed to her spouse, a political consultant named Tim Mynett. He disclosed up to $143,000 of assets and up to about $54,000 of income, linked to various individual retirement accounts (IRA) and 401 (k) retirement savings plans, a winery, and a venture capital firm.

Gauging the reaction

One X user, @beetle6000, said in response to Omar's post: "How could you still be paying off student loans making that much money?"

Others said they disagreed with Omar's politics but respected her integrity, echoing reactions to Ocasio-Cortez's similar post.

"I usually don't agree with you but on this, until they produce receipts I have to agree," @adryenn wrote.

@AidenPerrin40 wrote: "You and I disagree on 99.9% of issues but … Major respect to you ma'am for not owning any stock. It's important to give credit to those of which we disagree with when they get it right."

@nrghound wrote: "I disagree with Omar politically, but I'm sure she's telling the truth about her income. The Democrat Senators make a ton of money narrative is circulating right now. It feels like a hit piece to me."

Some just seemed to enjoy what seemed like refreshing transparency.

@runningmoron wrote: "I kind of like this era of congress people talking about how broke they are."

Politicians face fresh scrutiny as Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency searches for fraud, waste, and abuse.

In a Tuesday press conference, the Tesla CEO and close advisor to President Donald Trump said it was "rather odd" that government employees earning salaries of a few hundred thousand dollars could grow their net worth into the tens of millions while in their roles, but didn't offer any examples.

Musk said he thinks "the reality is that they're getting wealthy at the taxpayers' expense, that's the honest truth of it."

Correction: February 12, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated the date of the press conference. It took place on Tuesday, not Wednesday.

• Kimbal Musk, Elon Musk's brother, sold 75,000 Tesla shares worth about $28 million, a filing shows.
• The disposals reduced his stake by almost 5%, to 1.46 million shares.
• Tesla stock is up by almost 40% since the election but has slid 13% since the start of January.

Elon Musk's brother sold Tesla stock worth about $28 million in a single day, per a Securities and Exchange Commission filing published on Monday.

Kimbal Musk, a Tesla director, cashed in 75,000 shares of the electric vehicle company on Thursday. The latest disposals trimmed his stake by nearly 5%, to 1.46 million shares, worth about $514 million at Monday's close.

The Tesla CEO's younger brother cofounded the software company Zip2 with him in 1995 but has since focused on ventures including restaurants, urban farming, and outdoor classrooms.

Tesla shares have surged by almost 40% since the US election on November 5. Elon Musk helped Donald Trump win by spending more than $250 million in support of his campaign, speaking at his rallies, and marshaling his social media followers to vote for the former president.

Investors wagered that Elon Musk's role as a trusted advisor to the president and the head of the quasi-governmental Department of Government Efficiency would translate to light-touch regulation of his companies and supportive policies.

But Tesla shares have dropped by 13% this year even as the broader stock market has risen, fueling a nearly $40 billion decline in Elon Musk's net worth, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He remains the world's richest person, with an estimated net worth of $395 billion — $142 billion more than that of his nearest rival, Mark Zuckerberg.

A Stifel analyst said in a recent note that Elon Musk's government work appeared to be souring consumers on the Tesla chief and his company, which could weigh on sales.

Elon Musk has long argued that Tesla is more than an automaker. He's touted its artificial intelligence efforts, arguing that they'd lead to huge profits from future products such as Optimus humanoid robots and fully self-driving vehicles.

Insider stock transactions are closely watched on Wall Street as they can indicate sentiment about a company. Directors' jettisoning shares could signal that they expect the company's share price to plunge and want to cash out before it does.

Insiders may sell stock for many reasons, including diversification, retirement planning, or a need for a lump sum to pay taxes or cover a large expense.

• Some young consumers exploit loopholes like wardrobing and "digital shoplifting" to save money.
• These practices are hurting retailers' bottom line.
• Brands are imposing stricter return policies and fees in some cases to combat the problem.

Some young consumers are trying to make their money go further by taking advantage of retail loopholes such as returning items after wearing them once, using chargeback services on credit cards — or even pretending they didn't receive the things they ordered.

In response, some retailers are hitting back by imposing stricter return policies and fees.

"Returns are very expensive for brands — it's an enormous part of their cost structure," Michael Yamartino, the CEO of Route, which works with some 13,000 brands to track and insure packages, told Business Insider. "If it's being abused, it's easy for that to make the brand unsustainable."

Shoplifting in the digital age

Some consumers are reportedly engaging in a practice called "digital shoplifting." They buy a product online that gets delivered safely to their home, but they lie to the retailer and say they didn't order it, or claim it never arrived or was stolen, scoring a refund for an item they're keeping.

They might also report the transaction to their credit-card company and request a charge-back to get their money refunded, while still keeping the item.

Socure, an anti-fraud company, recently surveyed 2,000 people and found about half of Gen Z and millennials who earn more than $100,000 a year said they had digitally shoplifted in the past year. Wealthier customers might be more savvy about bank and merchant policies and how to abuse them, a Socure executive told Fortune.

Inflation hitting 40-year highs and interest rates breaching 5% for the first time since the financial crisis have turned the screw on many households. Combined with influencers marketing digital shoplifting as a money-saving hack on social media, and generous refund policies among merchants, may help explain the trend.

Serial returners

Returns are also a headache for retailers as it takes time and money to transport products back to warehouses, assess their condition, issue refunds, repackage and ship them to a new customer, or liquidate, donate, recycle, or dispose of them.

The National Retail Federation and Happy Returns, a UPS company, projected in December that the value of returns in the US would be $890 billion in 2024, with retailers estimating that about 17% of purchases would be returned.

A previous NRF report found that return rates for online purchases in 2023 were 17.3% — far higher than the 10% rate for in-store purchases.

"Serial returners" in the UK send back goods worth almost £7 billion ($8.7 billion) of items a year, a report by Retail Economics and the returns company ZigZag found.

Route's Yamartino told BI that the rise in online shopping since the pandemic meant an "increase in the returns rates, particularly with younger buyers."

Route's State of Ecommerce Report 2024 report found that Gen Z is the most likely cohort to engage in "wardrobing" — buying items with the intent to return them after wearing them — with 40% of the Zoomers in a survey of 1,250 consumers saying they would do so.

Social media has also popularized shopping hauls — showing off multiple items you bought from one store. Many of these items may be sent back after one use.

"What we're seeing is people buying it, using it lightly, and then returning it," Yamartino said. "So it's just the right item, it's exactly what they want, but they don't want it for that long."

Many young consumers have grown up with social media stars, "so there's a lot of concern about image," he added. "Using something like wardrobing as a tactic can help you fake it till you make it."

Brands fight back

In response, some companies have started adding tags or ribbons to items to prevent them from being returned once worn or charging customers if they send back items too often.

Asos started telling some customers last year that they could not make any more orders if they had returned too many things too often, The Cut reported. The fashion retailer has also introduced a £3.95 ($4.90) return fee for some UK-based shoppers unless they keep items worth more than £40.

Other retailers cracking down on repeat refunders include Oh Polly, Zara, and PrettyLittleThing.

It's a difficult balance to strike as many consumers like to purchase multiple items from online stores because they're not sure of the sizing and don't want to be penalized for returns.

Route can help brands create profiles for customers, Yamartino said, so loyal customers aren't affected, and others are invited to pay a small amount upfront rather than hefty fees.

"It lets us use the data that we have on folks to make the right decision about those purchases, and lets the brands protect themselves and help offset the cost of these returns programs that are getting more and more expensive," he said.

• Bill Gates details his early relationship with Steve Ballmer in his new "Source Code" memoir.
• Ballmer mirrored Gates' energy, boosted his social life, and became the business partner he needed.
• Gates gave Ballmer a 4% stake in Microsoft that's now worth more than $120 billion.

Bill Gates found a kindred spirit, a social connector, a confidant, a study buddy, and a true business partner in Steve Ballmer, he writes in his new memoir, "Source Code: My Beginnings."

Gates, the billionaire philanthropist who cofounded Microsoft, met Ballmer in a graduate economics class in the fall of 1976, when the pair were undergraduates at Harvard University.

The computing pioneer had heard from a friend that "Steve's a lot like you," and instantly recognized that Ballmer shared his "excess energy."

"Steve Ballmer had it beyond anyone I had ever known," Gates writes.

Ballmer was different from many of the students in Gates' dorm building, "nerdy math-science types" who largely socialized by playing Pong or poker in the basement.

"He had an unusual combination of brains and physicality and was effortlessly social," Gates writes, noting Ballmer managed the university's football team, oversaw advertising at its student newspaper, and was president of its literary magazine.

The future software tycoon recalled attending a football game and seeing Ballmer "expend just as much energy pacing and bouncing on the sidelines" as anyone on the field.

Gates writes that Ballmer widened his social circle and helped secure his entry into the exclusive Fox Club, known for its "black-tie parties, secret handshakes, and other archaic rules and rituals" that Gates would usually have avoided.

Microsoft's first CEO writes that he and his future successor spoke late at night about their life goals, whether it was better to work for the government or a company, and how they could improve society and maximize their impact on the world.

They also skipped most of their economics lectures, crammed together for the final, and were "triumphant" when they passed.

Bringing Ballmer on board

Gates had founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975. They initially had a 60-40 split, but Gates felt he was more committed to building the company so he negotiated with Allen to make it 64-36.

He also realized he needed an around-the-clock business partner to talk through key decisions, pore over customer lists, manage the company's finances, and help him with "shouldering a hundred things like that every week."

Gates eventually gave his additional 4% stake to Ballmer to convince him to quit business school for Microsoft. "He joined in 1980 and became the 24-hour-a-day partner I needed," Gates wrote.

Ballmer succeeded Gates as Microsoft CEO in 2000 and still owned 4% of the company when he stepped down in 2014, regulatory filings show.

The LA Clippers owner's stake is worth more than $120 billion, and makes up the bulk of his estimated $145 billion net worth — putting him in 10th place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, just behind Warren Buffett and only three spots behind Gates.

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said her net worth was less than $500,000.
• She said her only income is her congressional salary, and she doesn't own a home or trade stocks.
• Commenters on X reacted to her wealth with a mix of shock, judgment, and reluctant respect.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she's worth less than $500,000, prompting a mixture of disbelief, criticism, and begrudging respect from commenters on X.

The New York congresswoman, often called AOC, discussed her personal wealth after an X user claimed she was worth tens of millions as a result of taking kickbacks.

The Democratic lawmaker said that the user was "completely making things up" and that she didn't trade individual stocks or earn any income apart from her congressional salary. "I don't even own a house!" she said in a second response.

Ocasio-Cortez worked as a bartender and server before winning a seat in the House of Representatives, which she's held since 2019. She earns the standard congressional salary of $174,000 a year.

Her financial disclosure form last year showed she had no more than $46,000 across her checking, savings, brokerage, and 401(k) accounts, and owed between $15,000 and $50,000 of student loans.

Forbes estimated Ocasio-Cortez's net worth last year at about $125,000 with most of her wealth in a Thrift Savings Plan — a 401(k)-style investment vehicle for government employees that doesn't have to be listed in financial disclosures.

Several X users said they disagreed with her progressive politics but appreciated her integrity.

@SpanglEdReAper, who has "GOD, GUNS AND TRUMP!" in their bio, wrote: "As much as I despise completely your political ideology and your methods, its true AOC is one of the few that is not taking kickbacks, or at least that we know of atm."

Similarly, @starbw_eth wrote: "I am not a fan of your politics, but I do believe you are ethical and trustworthy when it comes to your own personal corruption stance. I wish more congressional officeholders followed that same standard."

Meanwhile, others were surprised by the state of Ocasio-Cortez's finances.

"How do you make 174k per year and your net worth is almost nothing?" user @raphaellimasp wrote.

@coldhealing wrote: "Not being worth $500k at age 35 with a salary of $174k is not the financial strategy that we want to encourage in Americans."

"This is NOT a flex," @GuyTalksFinance wrote. "Someone get AOC a book on personal finance and budgeting."

Restoring a little faith

Thomas Roulet, a professor of organizational sociology and leadership at the University of Cambridge, told Business Insider in an email it was "reassuring" to see apparent critics of Ocasio-Cortez give her kudos for coming across as "morally and ethically consistent."

The reaction also speaks to the social-media-fueled polarization in politics where "everything triggers an outrage and there is no middle ground," and "politicians and leaders are either deeply hated or deeply revered," he said.

In Roulet's view, authenticity can feed polarization because "if you are true to yourself it makes you even more at odds with those who dislike you, but it connects you with your supporters."

Ocasio-Cortez, a vocal critic of corporate influence and corruption in politics, has previously posted on X about setting people straight regarding her finances.

In October 2022, she recalled someone asking her how she was worth $29 million and her replying: "Sir, I wish. My financial disclosures are public. I still owe ~$18k in student loans."

"I don't own nor trade individual stocks, accept no corporate money to my campaign, & live solely off my congressional salary (which requires us to pay for 2 rents out of pocket)," she continued in a second post. "All of this is publicly disclosed info. I save in a Thrift Savings Plan just like other fed workers."

Accusations of political corruption, many of them demonstrably false, have surged in recent days as Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has made government fraud and waste a hot topic online.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

• Bill Gates has gifted $100 billion of his personal fortune to good causes so far, he told the BBC.
• Microsoft's cofounder is the world's seventh-richest person with a net worth of about $164 billion.
• Gates said his philanthropy hasn't forced him to "order less movies or less hamburgers."

Bill Gates says he's given away $100 billion of his personal fortune so far.

The Microsoft cofounder and Gates Foundation chair revealed the scale of his philanthropy to the BBC on Monday.

Despite his extensive giving, Gates is the world's seventh-richest person, with an estimated $164 billion net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

"I still have more to give," Gates told the BBC. "I will give away the vast majority of my money; it's my full-time focus for the rest of my life, and I enjoy it."

As of Wednesday's close, he's two spots ahead of longtime friend Warren Buffett, worth $148 billion, and three places above Steve Ballmer, his former assistant and successor as Microsoft CEO, worth $144 billion.

Ignoring any investment gains and all else being equal, if Gates had another $100 billion to his name, he would be worth $264 billion. That would make him wealthier than Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, number two and three on the rich list with respective fortunes of $255 billion and $248 billion. He would be the world's second-richest person, behind only Tesla's Elon Musk, worth $414 billion.

For comparison, Buffett has given nearly 57% of his Class A shares of Berkshire to the Gates Foundation and four of his family's foundations since 2006. The gifts, based on when they were received, total about $56 billion, but the same shares are worth $189 billion today.

Buffett is 25 years older than Gates, meaning the technology pioneer is likely to have more time to distribute his fortune. Buffett, Gates, and Gates' then-wife, Melinda, established the Giving Pledge in 2006 to encourage the world's wealthiest people to commit the majority of their fortunes to charitable causes.

Gates told the BBC that parting ways with $100 billion hasn't required him to give up anything at all.

"I made no personal sacrifice," he said. "I didn't order less hamburgers or less movies."

Gates — who published a memoir this week titled "Source Code: My Beginnings" — has previously called for higher taxes on the uber-wealthy, saying people like him should be about a third as rich as they are. But Sen. Bernie Sanders needled him in a recent conversation about why he wanted to remain a multi-billionaire.

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

Gates owned about 1.3% of Microsoft prior to stepping down as a director in 2020, regulatory disclosures show. The bulk of his fortune is now in a holding company named Cascade Investment, which he funded with Microsoft stock sales and dividends.

• Trump levied an additional 10% tariff on imports from China and said that could increase further.
• Economists and industry groups said US consumers could end up seeing higher prices as a result.
• Consumer electronics, clothing and textiles, cars, and home appliances could all get more expensive.

If you're planning to buy a new phone, clothes, or kitchen appliances made in China, you may need to rethink your budget.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump imposed an additional 10% tariff on imports of Chinese goods. If the duties stay in place or increase, Americans could pay more for a wide variety of products.

The US imported $427 billion in goods from China in 2023, the most recent year for which full data is available, according to the Census Bureau. Goods like consumer electronics, car parts, and appliances were among the biggest-ticket items. Here are four product categories that could see price increases.

Consumer electronics

The US imported $66.7 billion in cellphones and other household goods, $37.4 billion in computers, and $15.7 billion in computer accessories from China in 2023, per the Census Bureau.

The Consumer Technology Association has estimated that 87% of US video game consoles imported to the US in 2023 came from China. That estimate was 78% for smartphones and 79% for laptops and tablets.

The trade group said in a January report that across-the-board tariffs would increase prices of laptops by up to 68%, video game consoles by up to 58%, and smartphones by up to 37%.

Clothing and textiles

The US imported $19.6 billion in textiles and clothing from China in 2023.

The National Retail Federation has previously said that sweeping tariffs would considerably increase the price of apparel, footwear, and travel goods such as backpacks and wallets.

The Trump administration removed the "de minimis" provision for imports from China, which previously exempted imports worth up to $800 from tariffs. That could cut into the business model of Chinese retailers such as Temu and Shein, which relied on small duty-free shipments directly to US consumers.

Some retailers that manufacture a large share of their products in China have previously signaled they were preparing to pass on the cost of tariffs to customers. Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle told The Washington Post his company was "set to raise prices." ELF Beauty CEO Tarang Amin told CNBC that if the company "needed to leverage pricing," it would.

Cars

China is also a big producer of car parts, with the US importing $14.6 billion worth of parts and accessories in 2023.

Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, previously told BI that US automakers sourced a big share of their parts from China, so it was "very reasonable" to expect them to raise prices.

She added that automakers might struggle to shift production out of China because if Trump imposes a universal tariff, "you don't really know if there's any safe place."

Home appliances

The US imported $13.8 billion worth of appliances from China in 2023, with the NRF previously saying in a report that it expected the average basic fridge price to rise from $650 to $776 under Trump's tariffs.

The NRF said in a statement on Saturday that it encouraged "all parties to continue negotiating to find solutions that will strengthen trade relationships and avoid shifting the costs of shared policy failures onto the backs of American families, workers and small businesses."

• Top economists including Paul Krugman criticized Trump's plan to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
• The pair said import taxes would damage trust in the US, while Robert Reich said Trump had ill intent.
• Steve Hanke said Americans pay for tariffs, and they don't increase employment.

Prominent economists including Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, Steve Hanke and Robert Reich have been airing their views on President Donald Trump's plan to impose tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico.

Trump said the plan to impose 25% levies on tariffs on most goods entering the US from its northern and southern neighbors, and a 10% tariff on Chinese imports, could cause "some pain" but would be "worth the price."

They were due to take effect on Tuesday, but Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday they would be delayed by a month following a "good conversation" with Trump.

Damaging trust

Krugman, a winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, said in a Substack post that tariffs threaten global faith in America.

"And even if some of the tariffs prove temporary, the Rubicon has been crossed," he wrote. "We now know that when the United States signs an agreement, on trade or anything else, the president will treat that agreement as a mere suggestion to be ignored whenever he feels like it. That revelation in itself will do huge long-term damage."

The former MIT and Princeton University professor also cautioned the modest slump in stocks on Monday might herald a steeper sell-off. "This market complacency is a self-defeating prophecy: muted market reaction makes it likely that Trump will continue and expand his trade war," Krugman said.

Price pain and economic fallout

Summers, a former US Treasury chief and Harvard University president, said on X the tariffs were "inexplicable and dangerous."

They stand to raise the prices that Americans pay for many things including cars and gas, make US firms less competitive, stymie job creation, increase unemployment, and trigger retaliation from other countries that harms the US economy, he said.

They could also destabilize the Mexican economy, spurring more of its citizens to head for the US border, and lead to other countries viewing the US as a "bad partner" that's willing to "arbitrarily impost tariffs as a form of hostage-taking for leverage," Summers said.

In a follow-up post, Summers said that "bullying doesn't win over time on the playground or in the international arena." He said this "self-inflicted supply shock" was a gift to Chinese leader Xi Jinping and made China look relatively better to the rest of the world.

He added that price hikes could accelerate overall inflation and force the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates instead of cutting them, curbing economic growth.

'Hidden tax'

Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on X that research shows US consumers and businesses — not foreign exporters — pay virtually the entire cost of tariffs.

"Tariffs = a hidden tax on Americans," wrote the former economic advisor to Ronald Reagan.

Hanke also dismissed the idea of a domestic jobs boom. "The idea that tariffs will increase jobs is nonsense. Manufacturing output in the US is up, but manufacturing jobs have been declining for the last 40 years — tariffs or no tariffs."

He added that tariffs rob Americans of purchasing power.

Moreover, the president's tariffs threaten the entire North American economy and thus growth, inflation, and investor and business confidence across the world, Peel Hunt economists said in a research note.

"Although the US appears strong, momentum is narrowly driven by fiscal excesses and consumer exuberance," senior economist Kallum Pickering and his team wrote. "If tariffs lead to a spike in bond yields that, in turn, prick the US equity market bubble, the need for sudden fiscal discipline and a more cautious consumer could destabilise the upswing."

"Whether it happens through inflation, higher interest rates, or increased future taxes to cover the deficit-financed tax cuts which Trump proposes to offset the import levies, US consumers will pay for tariffs," they added.

Money and power

Reich, who advocated for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during his tenure as labor secretary, said on his Substack that Trump is using tariffs to demonstrate his power and unpredictability.

Reich said Trump's actions tend to be for his own benefit. He dishes out tax cuts and regulatory relief to US executives, and special treatment on trade, energy, and intelligence to foreign oligarchs, in exchange for lucrative business deals, information, campaign funds, and positive publicity, Reich said.

"Trump says he's doing this for American workers," Reich wrote. "Nothing could be farther from the truth. He's doing this for himself and for the world's oligarchy, which, in turn, is busily siphoning off the wealth of the world."

• Barbara Corcoran found her dream home when she delivered a package to a Manhattan penthouse in 1992.
• The future "Shark Tank" star told the apartment's owner to call her if she ever decided to sell.
• More than 20 years later, Corcoran got the call and promptly bought the place for $10 million.

Barbara Corcoran stumbled upon her dream home when she delivered a package there in 1992 — then purchased it more than two decades later.

The "Shark Tank" star was working part-time as a messenger to keep her fledgling real-estate business afloat during a painful downturn, and one delivery took her to a penthouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

"I walked in and saw this green, lush terrace through the French doors, and said to the lady who let me in, 'If you're ever going to sell this, would you sell it to me?'" Corcoran recently told The New York Times.

"She didn't take me seriously. Years went by, I got notoriety. When she was ready to sell it, she called me."

Corcoran told Business Insider that imagining herself in that home drove her to hustle and excel in her career.

"I don't think you can accomplish anything without starting with a dream," she said. "And I think the less attainable something seems, the more important dreaming is because it's all you've got! That certainly applies to today's real estate market which is less affordable for first time buyers. But if you visualize the house you want and choose the street you want, you're more able to do the hard work it takes to get it because it's already real in your mind."

"I've visualized every success in my life long before I ever accomplished it," Corcoran continued. "I could feel it, touch it, and picture every detail. But without dreaming first and putting in the hard work to get there, I'd probably be living in my studio rental on East 83rd Street."

Living the dream

The property tycoon has previously shared the story about how she bought the apartment. She told "Shark Tank" costar Kevin O'Leary in 2020 that the previous owner "looked at me with pity" because she couldn't imagine a courier could ever afford a Fifth Avenue penthouse.

O'Leary suggested the takeaway was that relationships are vital to snagging prime real estate.

"No," Corcoran replied. "Relationships matter, but more important than that, dreaming matters. I envisioned myself living here."

Corcoran told O'Leary she paid $10 million for the apartment and spent another $3 million on renovations. She estimated her place was only worth $12 million at that point, but dismissed the idea it was a bad investment.

"Because I over-improved it on purpose, and I'll be living here for 10 years," she said. "New York's a crazy market, but one thing I know for sure, I will make a lot of money."

The founder of The Corcoran Group, which she sold for $66 million in 2001, told "Live With Kelly & Mark" in 2023 that she sits in her home and squeals with delight every night.

She granted influencer Caleb Simpson a tour in late 2022 that he shared on social media:

The 1158 Fifth Avenue apartment was featured in a New York Times article headlined "Garden in the Sky" before it was listed in 2013 for the first time since 1975.

The newspaper described Corcoran's future home as an "elegantly eclectic duplex penthouse … with soothing views of Central Park to the west and the George Washington Bridge to the north."

Property records show the apartment was listed at $14.5 million in November 2013. After several price cuts, it was sold for $10 million in March 2015.

Corcoran spoke to the Times after her mobile home in the Palisades burned down during the recent California wildfires. She said she acquired that property by finding a neighborhood on the beach she liked, walking the streets until she found the home she wanted, then knocking and asking the owner if she wanted to sell.

The owner initially said no, but changed her mind after Corcoran said she could use the place whenever she wanted for the rest of her life.

"That's how I buy all of my homes," Corcoran said about purchasing sight unseen. "I have an emotional love affair with them. It's romanticism. I walk in and I go, 'I belong here'."

• Elon Musk brought up fairy tales, trains, and toddlers during Tesla's fourth-quarter earnings call.
• The carmaker's CEO also touched on telescopes, Superman, and inventors shouting "Eureka!"
• Scroll down for Musk's nine best quotes from the call.

Elon Musk touched on everything from fairy tales and toddlers to trains and telescopes during Tesla's fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.

The automaker's CEO nodded to "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," joked about people shooting lasers out of their eyes like Superman, and said he wanted to "make manufacturing cool again."

Here are Musk's nine best quotes from the call:

1. "Some of these things I've said for quite a long time, and I know people have said, 'Well, Elon is the boy who cried wolf like several times.' But I'm telling you, there's a damn wolf this time, and you can drive it. In fact, it could drive you. It's a self-driving wolf." (Musk was joking about how he'd repeatedly pushed back the release of Full Self-Driving.)
2. "For a lot of people, they, like, their experience of Tesla autonomy is like — if it's even a year old, if it's even two years old — it's like meeting someone when they're like a toddler and thinking that they're going to be a toddler forever. But obviously they're not going be a toddler forever. They grow up. But if their last experience was like, 'Oh, FSD was a toddler.' It's like: 'Well, it's grown up now. Have you seen it? It's like, walks and talks.'"

3. "It's one of those things where I think long term, Optimus will be — Optimus has the potential to be north of $10 trillion in revenue, like it's really bananas. So, that, you can obviously afford a lot of training compute in that situation. In fact, even $500 billion training compute in that situation would be quite a good deal." (Musk was discussing how much it might cost to train Tesla's humanoid robots and how lucrative they could be for the company.)

   

4. "Now, with Optimus, there's a lot of uncertainty on the exact timing because it's not like a train arriving at the station for Optimus. And like, we're literally designing the train and the tracks and the station in real time."
5. "There is no company in the world that is as good at real-world AI as Tesla. I don't even know who's in second place. Like you say, like, who's in the second place for real-world AI? I would need a very big telescope to see them. That's how far behind they are."

6. "The Hollywood thing is like, it's like some lone inventor in a garage goes 'Eureka!' and, suddenly, it files a patent and, suddenly, there's millions of units. I'm like, listen guys, we're missing really 99% of the story.

   "Hollywood shows you the 1% inspiration but forgets about the 99% perspiration of actually figuring out how to make that initial prototype manufacturable and then manufactured at high volume such that the product is reliable, low cost, consistent, doesn't break down all the time, and that is 100 times harder at least than the prototype."

7. "Obviously, humans drive without shooting lasers out of their eyes — I mean, unless you're Superman."
   (Musk was explaining why he doesn't believe LiDAR is the best technology to enable autonomous driving.)
8. "Well, at Tesla, obviously, we think manufacturing is cool. SpaceX, we think manufacturing is cool. But in general, for talented Americans, they need to — beyond my companies, beyond me and my teams here, in general, we need to make manufacturing cool again in America. And like, I honestly think people should move from like law and finance into manufacturing. That's my honest opinion. We have too many — this is both a compliment and a criticism. We have too much talent in law and finance in America, and there should be more of that talent in manufacturing."
9. "But yeah, we're in this perverse situation where people will turn the car off autopilot so the computer doesn't yell at them, check their text messages while steering the car with their knee and not looking out the window."
   (Musk was discussing how Tesla's autopilot warns drivers not to look at their devices for safety, leading some to enable manual driving and then check their texts and emails.)

• Elon Musk declined to have dinner with the head of Norway's $1.7 trillion oil fund, texts show.
• Nicolai Tangen's fund voted against Musk's Tesla pay package, now worth about $100 billion.
• Musk said it would be "very difficult and expensive" to come and lectured Tangen about friendship.

Elon Musk turned down a dinner invitation from the head of Norway's $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund — and lectured him on how to be a better friend — after his firm voted against the Tesla CEO's huge pay package.

Norges Bank Investment Management, one of Tesla's 10 largest shareholders, with a roughly 1% stake, rejected a compensation deal for Musk in June that was worth $56 billion at the time and is now valued at about $100 billion.

Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of NBIM, later invited Musk — along with the bosses of Ferrari, Nestlé, Adidas, DoorDash, and Novo Nordisk — to dinner at his Oslo, Norway, home ahead of the oil fund's annual investment conference this coming April.

"This would be very difficult and expensive for me to attend," Musk replied in October, according to text messages that NBIM provided to Business Insider.

The messages, shown below, were first published by the Norwegian newspaper E24 after NBIM released them under freedom-of-information laws.

"When I ask you for a favor, which I very rarely do, and you decline, then you should not ask me for one until you've done something above nothing to make amends," Musk added. "Friends are as friends do."

Tangen replied that he understood, wished Musk luck, and was cheering him on as a major Tesla shareholder.

A few days later, Musk forwarded messages to Tangen from an unnamed correspondent accusing the Norwegian of giving his text messages to the media and telling them Musk wouldn't be attending the dinner — as well as suggesting Tangen had "political ambitions" and was using NBIM to "promote himself."

Musk asked Tangen whether he had sent his text messages to the press. Tangen said his communications were public information, he didn't make the decision to release them, and Musk's personal comments that weren't related to the conference hadn't been released.

"The country is obsessed about you, but this is not reflecting badly on you," Tangen added. "Still, sorry for any inconvenience."

Musk's blockbuster pay deal was blocked by a Delaware judge early last year, and again by the same judge in December. NBIM voted against the package at Tesla's annual meeting, saying it was "concerned about the total size of the award, the structure given performance triggers, dilution, and lack of mitigation of key person risk."

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO is the world's richest person with an estimated $428 billion net worth, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

His fortune swelled by more than $200 billion last year as Tesla stock soared 63% and SpaceX's valuation nearly doubled from $180 billion at the end of 2023 to $350 billion in December.

Musk didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

• DeepSeek has sent shockwaves through the technology, financial, and geopolitical spheres.
• The low-cost Chinese AI chatbot won't surprise anyone who knows Beijing's playbook.
• Chinese has disrupted many industries in similar fashion, including mining and electric vehicles.

A Chinese startup's launch of a ChatGPT rival has startled tech gurus, stunned investors, and stupefied geopolitical commentators. But DeepSeek's upheaval of the AI race shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with China's disruption playbook.

DeepSeek's debut of its latest AI models has flipped over the table, with venture capitalist Marc Andreessen hailing it as a "Sputnik moment" on X.

There was broad consensus that advancing artificial intelligence would require more and more computing power. Companies were poised to line up in droves to buy Nvidia's latest graphics chips, and pour money into building sprawling data centers.

President Donald Trump, SoftBank's Masayoshi Son, OpenAI's Sam Altman, and Oracle's Larry Ellison recently announced Stargate, a joint venture to invest at least $100 billion into US computing infrastructure to power AI progress, and as much as $500 billion over four years.

DeepSeek promptly released two AI models comparable to the available US ones, saying it spent less than $6 million on computing power for one, and relied on older Nvidia H800 chips. The company has said its open-source model is 20 to 50 times cheaper to use than OpenAI's o1 model, depending on the task.

The revelation floored many, especially as the US has restricted exports of powerful AI chips to China for years on national security grounds.

Investors suddenly realized Nvidia might not sell as many chips in the coming years as they expected. They promptly cut its market value by almost $600 billion on Monday — more than Mastercard, Exxon Mobil, or Oracle are worth. They also punished other US tech names, given the prospect of fierce foreign competition eating into future profits.

DeepSeek also upturned the narrative around the global AI race, as the US lead over China suddenly doesn't look so big. The startup's founder, Liang Wenfeng, reportedly attended a private gathering last week hosted by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, suggesting the state might see DeepSeek as a way to catch up to the US despite Washington's best efforts to starve it of the components it needs.

Given all the fanfare and drama, it's worth underscoring some skepticism around DeepSeek's claims regarding its models' capabilities, their total cost, and its reliance on older chips.

Hammer and tongs

DeepSeek is the latest example of a Chinese firm disrupting Western rivals with a lower-cost product, which has become something of a template or playbook.

For example, with the help of cheap state financing and the benefits of vertically integrated supply chains, Chinese companies have flooded the markets for commodities such as nickel, lithium, graphite, cobalt, and copper, pushing down prices and forcing some Western rivals out of business.

US, European, and Australian companies have struggled to be financially viable when prices are so low — especially as they face stricter regulations and steeper labor costs than their Chinese rivals — Hani Abuagla, a senior market analyst at XTB MENA, told Business Insider.

Rock-bottom prices also discourage Western companies from making new investments, and Chinese firms have struck supply deals in resource-rich regions of Africa and South America that keep out foreign competition, he said.

China's "ability to scale production rapidly often catches other regions off guard, leading to periods of oversupply," William Adams, the head of base metals and battery research at Fastmarkets, told BI.

"This oversupply creates challenges for new projects, particularly in the West, where companies are pressured by short-term financial goals like quarterly earnings and cash flow," Adams said. "In contrast, Chinese firms prioritize long-term planning and benefit from easier access to financing, facilitated by state-owned or state-controlled banks."

Canadian politician Chrystia Freeland said last year, when she was deputy prime minister, that China was flooding the global market with nickel, rare earth metals, and other commodities. She said it was "our belief that that behavior can be intentional, can be happening with the purpose of driving companies in our country, in those of our allies, out of business."

"The best illustration of China's playbook in action is in the field of critical materials, like rare earths," Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, told BI.

China dominates worldwide production and processing of critical materials because it's made targeted investments in industrial projects and education, and provided state-backed subsidies, said the veteran currency and commodity trader and former economic advisor to Ronald Reagan.

Beijing has prioritized its rare earth industry since the 1970s, closely controlling it and restricting foreign investments. China also prioritized education in relevant fields that Hanke dubs the "3Ms": mining and mineral engineering, metallurgical engineering, and materials science and engineering.

US universities account for 80% of the top 20 universities globally, but are "nowhere to be found in mining and mineral science," Hanke said. Meanwhile, Chinese universities account for 70% of the top 20 universities in the first two specialties and 30% in the third, he said.

Going electric

China's AI approach mirrors its strategy to dominate the global electric vehicle market.

"DeepSeek's low-cost model is similar to China's strength in offering an alternative that costs way less but only slightly less powerful, just like in electric vehicles," Phelix Lee, an equity analyst at Morningstar, told BI.

China spent over a decade pouring an estimated $230 billion into electric vehicle incentives and home-grown startups, an enormous spending spree that culminated with the explosive growth of the nation's EV industry over the past few years.

The Asian superpower's EV giants such as BYD have utilized their high levels of vertical integration — producing everything but the tires and windows in-house on some vehicles — and the country's effective stranglehold over the global supply chain for EV batteries to sell their electric vehicles for far cheaper than anywhere else.

Meanwhile, China's deep talent pool of software engineers and the entry of tech companies like Xiaomi into the market has seen local companies challenge their Western rivals in software and autonomous driving, with even Ford CEO Jim Farley being wowed by Xiaomi's SU7.

China made the strategic decision that its carmakers wouldn't be able to catch up with the best foreign rivals, and opted to develop electric vehicles instead, Duncan Wrigley, chief China+ economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, told BI.

"They called it a leapfrog strategy, but it took almost two decades," he said. "Firms like BYD did much of the heavy lifting like developing the technology and squeezing down costs, but with important state help to build the market through purchase subsidies and promoting charging stations."

Making waves everywhere

China has employed similar strategies to wrestle market share from Western companies in other industries.

Shein and Temu have upturned the fast-fashion and e-commerce industries by competing largely on price, disrupting the likes of Zara, H&M, Amazon, and eBay.

Moreover, Xiaomi has increased its share of the global smartphone market from about 2% in 2013 to about 13% last year, Statista data shows. Domestic rivals Vivo and Transsion also have also near-8% shares apiece. Apple remains the leader with a 20%-plus market share, but has lost ground in China to local players in recent months.

Reigniting the AI race

It's unclear just how disruptive DeepSeek will be, but it's certainly left America's AI industry reeling and raised big questions about how the technology will advance from here.

The US may have set itself up for disruption by seeking to constrain China's access to the latest chips. Hanke told BI that DeepSeek showed "sanctions rarely work, and often backfire."

"The US attempted to hamstring China's AI progress by imposing sanctions on graphics cards. Rather than slowing innovation, US sanctions have incentivized Chinese companies like DeepSeek to innovate and create what is now a much more effective system," he said.

However, it may have been inevitable that AI would proliferate, Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group, told BI.

"Breakthroughs … will inevitably diffuse globally, with nations like China able to replicate and innovate on similar technologies in months," he said.