• Meghan Gezo works for a European company from her home in Michigan.
• She loves the benefits of European working culture, from the hours to the vacation time norms.
• Having experienced these perks, Gezo said she'd find it hard to work for a US-based company again.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with 34-year-old Meghan Gezo, from Michigan. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2022, I left my job working remotely in people operations for a US company. Juggling my job and raising my one-year-old wasn't working.

I wanted to take a break while I looked for another opportunity that would allow me to have better work-life boundaries.

After a few months of job hunting, I started as a people experience manager at Storyblok, a fully remote content management company based in Austria.

I'd never worked for a company based in Europe before. Living in the US, most jobs that pop up are US-based.

People have come to expect more work-life balance in Europe, as the employment laws differ from the US. For me, there have been perks related to my life as a parent, my working hours, and my professional growth.

I was immediately drawn to the benefits of working for a European company

I've been working in remote jobs for tech companies since 2016.

I'd previously worked in an office, but thought a remote job meant I could focus on higher-impact work than the office administration that usually fell to HR, as well as branch out beyond the manufacturing and automotive industry jobs in my area.

It was easier to find a remote job in 2022 than in 2016. I found the listing for Storyblok on a job board. The people I spoke with were genuine and direct. In the first interview, they talked about time off norms and said the standard workweek is 38.5 hours. They seemed to emphasize work-life balance and gave me concrete examples of how it worked at the company.

I was optimistic I could be successful in the role while staying involved in my daughter's life.

In the US, the norm on paper is a 40-hour workweek, but in practice, people often work until they finish their tasks, especially in tech. I used to work, feed my daughter, put her to bed, and then work some more. It felt normal.

At my current company, you focus on work when you're at work and then log off until the next day. There have definitely been times when I've had to work extra hours, but overall, I'd say that my work-life balance is better.

In the US, it can often feel that your work is your identity. My European colleagues take pride in their work and are extremely hard workers, but their job is one facet of their identity.

Working for a European company has pushed me in new ways

I've gained experience working with people from other cultures. Learning about Austrian law has also pushed me to expand my HR knowledge beyond US employment law.

One thing I've noticed about the company culture is that when people are on vacation, they're on vacation. Meanwhile, it's more the norm in the US to answer messages on vacation. I've not completely broken this habit, but it has felt more attainable for me to delete work communication apps from my phone when I'm away.

I've felt very supported in my role as a parent at my European company

The Austrian norm of "care leave," which isn't a norm in the US, is a great part of working for a European company. Because I have kids under a certain age, I get to use two paid weeks off a year for days when my kids are sick and I need to take them to a doctor or take care of them. Having this bucket to pull from is a huge weight off my shoulders as a parent.

My previous employers had generous parental leave policies. However, at Storyblok, I got slightly more time — 16 weeks.

I went on maternity leave at a previous company with my firstborn and again at my current job in 2023. During my most recent maternity leave, people in the company treated it very seriously. I got a lot of support from my manager and team to help plan for my leave and assign my tasks to others.

During my first maternity leave for a previous company, I didn't mind answering a few questions as needed to support my team, but at Storyblok, no one asked me work-related questions while I was away.

There are some downsides

While my working hours suit my season of life, there are days when I wish I could start later at 9 a.m. However, I don't think I'd be as effective without overlap with my European colleagues. Right now, I work 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET.

Sometimes, if I have a question I want to ask colleagues in Europe during my afternoons, I'll know that I won't be getting an answer until the next day because of the time zone difference. I've learned to work these expectations into my regular workflow.

It does make me sad that I don't live near my colleagues. I've built strong relationships with these people, but they're an ocean away.

I'd find it hard to go back to a US-based company

Working for a European company didn't occur to me as an option before I interviewed for this job. Having worked here for over two years, I feel spoiled by the benefits and perks of European working culture, and it would be hard for me to go back to working for a US-based company.

Do you have a story to share about remote work? Contact this reporter at [email protected]

• An American Airlines flight to Naples, Italy, changed course to Rome on Tuesday morning.
• The airline sent a bigger variant of the Boeing 787 than usual, and cited "operational limitations."
• Passengers were bused from the Italian capital to Naples, which takes over two hours.

A transatlantic American Airlines flight diverted, and passengers were transported by bus, after the carrier seemingly sent a plane that was too big for its destination.

Monday's Flight 780 departed Philadelphia at 7:42 p.m. and was supposed to land in Naples, Italy, at 10 a.m. local time.

However, data from Flightradar24 shows how seven hours later, the Boeing 787-9 abruptly turned around over the Tyrrhenian Sea, west of the Italian mainland.

It was only about 70 miles away from Naples International Airport before it diverted north to Rome Fiumicino Airport.

An American Airlines spokesperson told Business Insider that the flight diverted due to "operational limitations."

Historical flight data shows that the airline usually sends a Boeing 787-8 on flights to Naples.

While these two Dreamliner variants are pretty similar, with the same wingspan, the 787-9 is actually 20 feet longer.

Documents from Boeing and the International Civil Aviation Organization show how this means the two planes have different requirements for rescue-and-firefighting services (RFFS).

The 787-8 is small enough to land at an airport with a Category 8 RFFS, but the 787-9 needs a Category 9 RFFS airport.

Data from AviationWeek's Acukwik indicates that Naples Airport falls under the former classification.

Aviation enthusiast @xJonNYC, who first shared the incident on X, reported that the airport authority said 787-9 planes can't land in Naples.

The Naples and Rome airport authorities didn't immediately respond to requests for comment sent by BI outside Italian working hours.

After landing at Rome Fiumicino Airport around 9:45 a.m., passengers were transported to Naples by bus, the airline spokesperson told BI.

"We apologize to them for this disruption to their journey," they added.

The two airports are around 145 miles away by road, which would take more than two hours.

Meanwhile, the 787-9 departed Rome two-and-a-half hours later, operating Flight 111 to Chicago, per Flightradar24.

This wasn't the only time this week that a diversion forced passengers to travel the remainder of their journey by bus.

On Wednesday, a Ryanair flight diverted after a thunderstorm caused severe turbulence that injured eight people, three of whom were taken to a local hospital.

Passengers were put on a bus from Memmingen, Germany, to Milan, a roughly four-and-a-half-hour journey.

Do you have a story to share about a recent flight diversion? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Many people are using generative AI chatbots in place of search engines.
• For that use, AI chatbots might already be as good as they ever will, one AI founder said.
• Chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini give interesting results without lots of ads, Lily Clifford said.

We're in the early days of generative AI tools. They might also be the best days, says one AI founder.

By day, Lily Clifford is the CEO and founder of Rime Labs. The startup creates the voice on the other end of the line when you call to order from restaurants like Domino's or Wingstop. Rime trains AI models to create voices with specific regional accents, tones, and other elements that make them easier to converse with.

Clifford also uses AI in her daily life, especially in lieu of search engines, she told Business Insider.

Instead of pulling up a search engine when she has a question, Clifford usually turns to generative AI chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Gemini.

She said the experience reminds her of using Google or other search engines in the late 1990s and early 2000s. That's when she thinks the user experience was at its prime.

"My hot take here is these applications might be the best that they ever will be," she said.

Search engines used to be simpler, Clifford said. There were far fewer ads and sponsored results. And optimizing webpages to get more clicks — a practice known as SEO — was in its infancy.

Those developments spawned new businesses and became features of the modern internet. But Clifford said search results have also gotten worse for users. It's common to see multiple sponsored results above more relevant ones in a search, for instance.

AI chatbots, meanwhile, haven't gone through the same evolution — yet.

Companies and individuals are still experimenting with using generative AI for lots of tasks, from writing emails to creating images for advertising campaigns.

Many people, like Clifford, use AI as a replacement for search engines.

Ask AI a question, and it will often give you an answer in just a few sentences. For some, that's more appealing than clicking through several results from a search engine until you find the information that you're looking for.

AI search results can also give users contradictory or incorrect information, though, creating a potential downside to the quick-and-easy answers.

Still, Clifford noticed the user experience gap between the chatbots and search engines during a recent trip to Milan, she said. While there, she used an AI chatbot to look for a local place to buy a silk blouse. The chatbot pointed her toward a local seamstress who sold custom blouses through Instagram.

"It wasn't like 'Go to Forever 21,' which is probably what would've happened if I typed it into Google," she said. "It was totally wild and fun to use."

But, Clifford thinks it's a matter of time before AI chatbots go the way of the search engines before them.

Some companies with big investments in generative AI search tools are taking steps in that direction.

Last month, Google said it would expand its use of ads in some of the AI Overviews that appear at the top of its search results, for example.

And some marketing experts now offer help with "answer engine optimization," or AEO.

These practices could make using generative AI for search more complex for users over time, Clifford said.

"More and more people pile in and try to do things with it, and then that necessarily makes it complicated," she said.

• At first, staying home with my child felt like I'd entered a career void.
• It allowed me to explore avenues and take risks I wouldn't have dared in a traditional work setting.
• I've learned that parenting is a job, too.

I thought I'd return to work after the birth of my first son, but once he was born, the thought of leaving him felt like a sucker punch to the gut.

When I announced I would stay home, my friend gave me a "Congratulations on Your Retirement" card. I was 24 at the time — hardly ready to retire.

It was a tough decision to make

For me, like many other new parents, the decision to leave the workforce was multifaceted. I didn't have family available to watch my infant, and other childcare options both made me uneasy and were expensive. Sending him to day care would have consumed 25% of my take-home income, which just didn't feel worth it when I wasn't totally comfortable with it in the first place.

At first, being a full-time parent felt like falling into a career void. I started to dread the question, "What do you do for a living?"

When I answered honestly, I often heard, "Well, that's an important job too."

Well-meaning, yes. But it sometimes felt dismissive. After all, no one tells a doctor or lawyer their job is important — they just know.

Staying home helped me discover and polish my interests

Full-time motherhood allowed me to explore different parts of myself and take risks I wouldn't have considered if I'd remained in my old job.

A fellow mom friend and I started a small business together. We plunged into marketing, product creation, manufacturing, and financial management, working from home as our children ran amok. It was the school of hard knocks.

When we closed the business due to family obligations, I turned to writing. I wrote feverishly during naps and evenings. Over seven years, I drafted multiple novels, two of which are forthcoming with a small press under a pen name. I also acquired a literary agent and started a weekly writing critique group that still meets.

I even ran a homeschool co-op from my home, teaching art history, science, and literature. This became my second education. One year, I condensed Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" into a digestible three-scene play that my students performed for their parents in the original language.

I am grateful for those years I got to tap into my creative energy. I wouldn't have pursued any of it if I hadn't first stayed home with my firstborn. That's why I wish we'd stop calling full-time parenthood a "motherhood gap." It gave me life skills I wouldn't have gained elsewhere.

I now need to work again, but I'm finding a balance

Then my husband was laid off, and while I'd always helped out financially by taking side work, it was suddenly clear that I needed a steadier income. Thanks to my writing experience, I found my niche in freelance work. But working 30+ hours a week with three kids meant I often resorted to night and weekend hours.

It was proof that being a stay-at-home parent was a full workload all along, even if it was paycheck-less.

Researcher Suzanne Slaughter writes about how many working moms want better options, not just full-time or nothing. She suggests employers offer remote, flexible, part-time positions that let mothers stay in the workforce without burning out. Reading her words kindled a fire in me. I missed the slow mornings of cuddling my toddler before the weight of deadlines crept in.

So, I've reduced my hours, trying to find a rhythm that works better for our family. It's not perfect. I still get distracted or feel pulled in too many directions. But I try to pause for long stretches to cook them a good meal, take a family walk, or read a book.

I want to be more present because I know that my presence is everything — for them and for myself. Although I love freelance writing, I will always value my first job more — parenthood — a job I will, thankfully, never retire from.

• Alex Spiro advises his high-profile clients to eat ice cream during a crisis.
• The attorney tells clients to look at the facts and "don't panic."
• His client, Elon Musk, likes to cut costs during times of uncertainty, he said.

High profile attorney Alex Spiro has one key piece of advice for clients wading through tricky times: Don't panic.

The words of wisdom were shared as one of his most high-profile clients, Elon Musk, is in the midst of a public feud with President Donald Trump. It's unclear if or how the attorney is guiding him through this particular debacle.

The lawyer, who has also represented Alec Baldwin, Mayor Eric Adams, and Jay-Z, through muddy legal waters, shared the advice he gives to clients during times of crisis at the Forbes Iconoclast Summit on Thursday.

"You got to get people to take a breath and not panic," Spiro said, adding that it's easier for some people to do so more than others.

A source close to Spiro got more specific. Those who know him know that his No. 1 piece of advice is to "have an ice-cream cone."

In other words, step away from the keyboard and cool off. "Nothing is better than chocolate ice cream," the source close to Spiro said.

The attorney isn't certain whether clients listen to the advice, but they at least pretend to, the source said.

Spiro, who spends a good chunk of his time on risk mitigation, told the Iconoclast Summit attendees that he tries to get clients to put their situation into perspective and focus on the facts and evidence in front of them.

"The sky is not falling," Sprio said. "The things that we think are a big deal today won't be a big deal in a month."

While most CEOs aren't publicly blasting the president on social media, many are navigating global and economic uncertainty, from looming tariffs to market volatility. Spiro said the best CEOs and CFOs he knows know how to take a "methodical" approach to uncertainty, which in the case of tariffs, would involve looking into their supply chains and preparing for what may happen next.

"I try to follow and steal the best ideas from the smartest people I know and then tell others about it," Spiro said. "That works out usually."

Musk is one of those people.

Spiro said on Thursday that Musk likes to cut costs during times of uncertainty because it leaves organizations more nimble on the other side. The billionaire is most recently known for doing so in the government, where he led efforts to slash about 20,000 federal employees, or about 1% of its workforce. Musk also laid off 10% of Tesla's workforce in waves last year and cut Twitter's workforce in half after he purchased it in 2022.

"You can always rehire," Spiro said about Musk's mentality. "You can always rebuild."

• Growing up, I wasn't allowed to learn about money and it made life difficult as a young adult.
• I now have a consulting company where I help business owners with their finances.
• I'm also raising my kids differently, so they don't face the same struggles I did starting out.

Growing up, I wasn't allowed to talk to boys, learn about money, or skip church. In my world, women were taught that God would provide through a man. I always questioned that.

I remember spying on my grandparents as they balanced checkbooks and printed 401(k) statements. Without them, I would have been clueless about money growing up.

Even as a kid, I knew I wanted more. I dreamed of being a businesswoman, working in a high-rise building, driving a Rolls-Royce, and not waiting on a man for permission.

These days, I lead a team that helps business owners grow equity and exit profitably through my consulting company, Millennial Strategies.

Getting to this point, however, was a challenge. And I'm raising my kids differently from how I was raised, so they don't face the same struggles I did.

My financial awakening

Starting out, my career path was unclear. The turning point came in my mid-20s.

I met an ex-pro athlete who pulled up a financial article on his phone and casually said, "You should buy gold, my buddies say the price is going to shoot up."

A few months later, I heard the same advice from a commodities trader I met. He even gifted me a thin gold bracelet and said, "Hold on to this."

I thought, "There must be more to this gold thing."

I Googled "How to buy gold bars" when the price was around $600 in 2008. I started small, buying from Goldline.com; $200 here, $300 there.

I was a broke single mom of two, but I used my child tax credit to invest. When I couldn't afford physical gold, I looked to gold miners or ETFs.

I started selling my position to local gold buyers around 2011 and exited during the 2013 correction, banking almost $2,000. The realization hit me: You can make money while you sleep.

I spent the next several years investing in financial literacy seminars and courses. I'm now licensed to help guide others.

How I'm teaching my kids about money

My plan didn't start out perfect, but budgeting my finances got better over time, and the more I learned about money, the more I realized my kids had better start investing early.

We hold family money meetings to review our budget, explore investments, and contemplate business ideas. We also reflect on experiences, agreeing upon what money means to us and what we're willing to do for it.

Both my kids have made money offering social media services to my clients, and my daughter does paid digital art commissions online.

Every time they get paid, 10% gets auto-invested into their High Yield Savings Account.

From Roth IRAs to selling options on our stock holdings, we manage it all together.

I used to lose sleep at night worrying how my kids would survive if anything happened to me. Now, I sleep confidently knowing that my money literacy gives us all a chance to grow, protect, and pass on the money we make.

I've learned that money is freedom

I used to feel like every other month was a game of catch-up. Now, we can actually enjoy things like flights to Europe, fine dining, learning guitar, and the freedom to work jobs for passion, not just to pay the bills.

I'm not here to be another finance influencer online. I'm here to give voice to every woman who was told to be quiet, sit pretty, and wait for a man.

The number one lesson I've learned is that money is power. And power in the hands of a confident, educated woman changes everything.

• JPMorgan staffers are organizing a union amid dissatisfaction with return-to-office policies.
• The unionization effort follows a similar, prolonged attempt at Wells Fargo with limited success.
• Inside the effort, from free pizza to "lessons learned" from Wells Fargo.

A budding movement is taking shape to unionize staffers at JPMorgan Chase, America's biggest bank by assets. If the yearslong unionization effort at Wells Fargo is any indication, they could have a long road ahead.

Last week, JPMorgan's organizers hosted a virtual meeting with a unionizer who was involved in Wells Fargo's effort to "share lessons learned," according to an email shared with members earlier this week. The Wells Fargo drive, which is also supported by a coalition called the Committee for Better Banks, has stretched on for two years with little success.

The meeting resulted in the following advice, according to a post on the JPMC Workers Alliance's official website:

• "Build trust before going public."
• "Use natural workplace conversations (e.g. breaks, lunch, text conversations) to test the waters and build confidence."
• "Talk outside of work with colleagues to gauge their sentiment."
• "Keep management in the dark about the process."
• "Push back against illegal management activity. Managers may not *SPIT: Surveil, Promise, Interfere, or Threaten with respect to unionizing activity or outcomes — but they may not know this."
• "Reframe the risks to increase confidence: The status quo is the real hazard. Would they fire the whole department?"

JPMorgan's unionization effort was spawned in large part by the bank's return-to-office policies. Earlier this year, JPMorgan summoned the roughly 40% of its workers who were still on a COVID-era hybrid work schedule back to their desks five days a week, kicking off complaints from employees of the Polaris campus, a major technology hub for the firm. Unlike JPMorgan's investment bankers, tech workers had been working from home a couple of days a week.

It's unclear how many JPMorgan workers have agreed to unionize as a result, but the JPMC Workers Alliance website boasts members from a number of US states, including New York, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, as well as multiple cities in the United Kingdom.

To build support, JPMorgan's organizers have been handing out flyers and hosting events, including a recent pizza party at JPMorgan's massive Polaris campus in Columbus, Ohio, which attracted hundreds of employees. New members are vetted by a group of organizers responsible for confirming their identities and welcoming them to the alliance's group chat on Discord, a messaging app popular with video gamers.

The event drew an estimated 250 to 300 workers, said a JPMorgan employee affiliated with the union who requested anonymity to protect his job. As employees lined up to grab a slice, organizers approached them to discuss the labor movement and its goals, this person said.

"Happy International Workers Day," read the flyers, which were viewed by Business Insider. "Did your leadership thank you today? You deserve better."

The handouts asked questions like:

• "Have you had to stand in the rain waiting for the shuttle?"
• "Was 30 days enough notice for you to find child care before RFTO?" The acronym refers to the full-time return to work.
• "Have you struggled to find an open desk?"

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or SMS/Signal at 561-247-5758. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Networking is more important than ever, so BI asked career coaches how to do it right.
• It's key to be specific and consistent, both online and in person.
• Common mistakes include being too self-centered and asking for the wrong favors.

You might be networking all wrong — and that could be more detrimental than ever before.

In the age of AI-generated applications and a tough market for many desk workers, making connections can be key to landing a job. Career coaches and etiquette experts told Business Insider about some of their dos and don'ts of networking.

Be specific

Too often, people blast out generic LinkedIn messages that will never stand out.

"You can't go into it cold," Jasmine Escalera, a career expert with MyPerfectResume, told BI, referring to networking. "That doesn't mean that you can't go into it making a cold connection, but you can't go into it just without a connection."

That connection doesn't always have to be strictly professional, Escalara said. You could, for example, find a common hobby. When it comes to online outreach, send a tailored message instead of a boilerplate one.

Madeline Mann, a career coach and CEO of Self Made Millennial, offered similar advice.

"If you're going to ask for 15 minutes of their time, be sure to show that you spent 15 minutes of yours," she said.

Generally, though, social media alone isn't enough. Brandon Dock, managing director of the recruitment firm TGC Search, said that talking to people in person is always best.

"I have always been a fan of using social media and other online tools as part of your arsenal, but it is a grave mistake to think of it as the entirety of your networking strategy," Dorie Clark, a communication coach who teaches at Columbia Business School and wrote the book "The Long Game," told BI.

Keep it professional — even online

While it's great to bond over hobbies, it's crucial to maintain professionalism. At in-person events, that often means limiting alcohol to one glass, Escalera said.

On social media platforms you're using for outreach, she said to maintain a "professional tone" and "tight brand."

Gen Zers can sometimes struggle to balance between professionalism and friendliness, Escalera and Lisa Richey, the founder of the American Academy of Etiquette, said.

"The formality of a handshake — you can never go wrong," Richey said. "It shows leadership. It shows confidence."

Dress for the industry

Now that in-person schmoozing is back, dressing the part is crucial, but each industry requires a slightly different look.

"Dress the way someone would in that office or in the industry, with a step up," Mann said. She said that no matter your gender, a button-down top is a safe bet. Escalera advised sticking to one statement piece.

It's important to tailor your clothing to the industry. Mann said, for example, that a suit might look odd at a tech event, but it's perfectly normal among lawyers.

The same rules apply online, Richey said.

"You have to be aware of what's going on behind you, your hair," she told BI. "You have to be groomed. You have to dress the part, even if it's an online meeting."

Don't wait until you need a job

People often only start networking when they need a job, but experts told BI that can be a mistake.

"Whenever there's an economic down cycle and people start to get worried about their jobs, that is inevitably when networking accelerates," Clark said.

To avoid becoming just one among many asking for a favor, you should maintain relationships even when you're secure in a job. Texting with closer connections is an underrated tool, according to Clark, who advised reaching out when you're not looking for anything in return.

Keeping up relationships doesn't follow a cookie-cutter template. Mann said that connections can come from the unlikeliest of places, so it's important to chat about your interests frequently.

"Never underestimate who knows the person you want to know," she said — maybe your barber's cousin works at your dream company.

Don't make it all about you

Experts said that too many people only highlight their experiences.

"Don't focus on knowing people. Focus on noticing people," Mann said. Both she and Escalera suggest coming up with specific questions for people you find exciting.

"Having a good elevator pitch is really awesome, but what we don't want to do is make it all about you," Escalera said, which can make the process feel "robotic."

Don't ask for too much

Networking is necessarily transactional, but that transaction can be a delicate dance, the experts said.

"You have to be cognizant of power relations and power differentials in networking," Clark said, noting you can ask a friend for more favors than a distant connection.

"You need to be very targeted and strategic about your ask, and you can probably only get away with asking them one thing," she added.

Mann thinks about it as flipping the switch from asking to giving — instead of just trying to extract information, consider what you can offer the other person, even if it's something as simple as tips for a coming vacation.

No matter the conversation, gratitude is key.

"Do not forget to follow up with them the next day or within a few hours, thanking them," Mann said. "And do not forget within the coming weeks to say how you utilize their insights."

• AMC Theaters will show ads after the trailers starting July 1 in a bid to boost revenues.
• Rival chains including Regal and Cinemark have had pre-show advertising since 2019.
• Attendance at AMC's US theaters fell 11% in the first quarter.

You're going to see ads right before the movie at AMC Theatres from next month.

The cinema chain is adding a "platinum spot" in between the trailers and the film from July 1.

The move is part of an agreement with National CineMedia that will give AMC a slice of the revenue from these ads, which the company describes as "vital" to its post-pandemic recovery.

Rivals including Regal and Cinemark have been playing pre-show ads since 2019. AMC had held out over fears of alienating movie fans.

AMC said in a statement that its competitors had not suffered "any direct impact to their attendance. This is a strong indication that this NCM pre-show initiative does not negatively influence moviegoing habits."

AMC said last month it would start offering 50% off tickets on Wednesdays for members of its loyalty scheme in a bid to boost midweek attendance, alongside an improved selection of food and beverages.

Revenues fell 9% to $862 million in the first quarter for AMC, while attendance at US theaters fell 11%.

Total US box office takings stood at nearly $3.4 billion by the end of May, per Comscore data — 26% higher than the same period last year.

A $4.2 billion haul is being forecast by the data provider for period from the first weekend in May to the Labor Day weekend in early September, Screen Daily reported. That could beat 2023's "Barbenheimer" summer when ticket sales reached almost $4.1 billion.

• President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's bromance has come to blows.
• With the two billionaires seemingly on the outs, a new tech consigliere could take Musk's place.
• Here's who could vie for the spot as Trump's right-hand tech man.

We might've just witnessed the messiest — and most public — breakup of the year: Elon Musk and President Donald Trump. But Trump may not stay single for long.

Trump's second inauguration in January was a who's who of Silicon Valley with executives from Apple, Meta, Google, and OpenAI in attendance. It might also foreshadow who could be next to take Musk's place as Trump's tech consigliere.

With Musk now potentially out of the picture, a new tech exec could slide into the president's DMs and the Oval Office.

Business Insider has rounded up a shortlist of who could become Trump's new tech right-hand based on who has done business with, lobbied, or cozied up to the president during his comeback tour in Washington. (Representatives from Meta, OpenAI, Amazon, and Blue Origin didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Spokespeople from Google and Nvidia declined to comment.)

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Platforms founder and CEO

Zuckerberg was something of a MAGA stan earlier this year. Meta, his company, dropped $1 million on Trump's inauguration, and Zuck even co-hosted a black-tie soirée that night to honor the second-time president.

Now, with Meta in the throes of a federal antitrust lawsuit, Zuckerberg may not be on Trump's good side. But the Meta CEO could be playing the long game here: He snapped up a $23 million, 15,000 square-foot DC mega mansion, establishing more of a presence in the capital. Zuck has also been on a bit of a rebrand journey, from a hoodie-wearing founder to a gold chain-wearing CEO with unapologetic swagger. Part of this transformation has included podcast appearances, like an episode with Trump-endorsing Joe Rogan in which Zuck talked about his "masculine energy" and his proclivity for bowhunting.

Sam Altman, OpenAI cofounder and CEO

Altman has also been circling the throne. First came Stargate: the $100 billion AI infrastructure plan between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, announced the day after Trump's inauguration.

Then, in May, the OpenAI CEO joined Trump on a trip to Saudi Arabia while Altman was working on a massive deal to build one of the world's largest AI data centers in Abu Dhabi. This reportedly rattled Musk enough to tag along at the last minute, according to the Wall Street Journal. OpenAI was ultimately selected for the deal, which Musk allegedly attempted to derail, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Trump is a fan of the AI arms race, and Altman is poised to ride its hype wave.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and executive chairman, Washington Post owner, and Blue Origin founder

Back in 2015, Bezos wanted to launch Trump into orbit after the at-the-time presidential candidate fired shots at Bezos on what was Twitter, now X, calling the Washington Post, which Bezos owns, a "tax shelter," Bezos responded that he'd use Blue Origin, a space company Bezos founded, to "#sendDonaldtospace."

Times have certainly changed. In January, Bezos said he is "very optimistic" about the administration's space agenda. Behind the scenes, he has reportedly given Trump political advice, allegedly as early as the summer of 2024, according to Axios.

There was a brief flare-up in April, though, after Amazon reportedly considered listing Trump's tariffs next to products' prices on the site, according to Punchbowl News. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the plan a "hostile and political action." The idea, which was never implemented, was scrapped, and an Amazon spokesperson insisted it was only ever meant for its low-cost Haul store.

If Trump does cancel Musk's SpaceX government contracts as he threatened to do, Bezos' Blue Origin, and rival to SpaceX, could stand to benefit. Blue Origin already has a $3 billion contract with NASA.

Jensen Huang, Nvidia cofounder and CEO

While Huang was notably missing from Trump's second inauguration in January, he did attend the Middle East trip in May. Nvidia is partnering with Oracle, SoftBank, and G42 on the OpenAI data center plans in the UAE.

But Nvidia hasn't gotten off too easy: In April, Trump banned the chip maker from selling its most advanced chips, the H20, to China, a move that Nvidia says cost it $5.5 billion and reportedly prompted the company to modify the chip for China to circumvent US export controls.

Sundar Pichai, Google CEO

In April, a federal judge ruled that Google holds an illegal monopoly in some advertising technology markets. This is one of two major legal blows to Google in the past year: Back in August 2024, a federal judge ruled that Google violated antitrust law with its online search. If Google has to sell Chrome, Barclays told clients on Monday, Alphabet stock could fall 25%.

This flurry of litigation — and potential divestment of the Chrome business — puts Pichai between a rock and a hard place. While the CEO was spotted with the rest of the technorati at Trump's inauguration, it's hard to say how he might cozy up to Trump, and whether friendly relations would do anything to remedy these rulings.

• May's jobs data came in stronger than economists expected, but the labor market is still a mixed bag.
• Workers already in white-collar roles, or those seeking jobs in healthcare, are in a good position.
• But middle managers, white-collar job seekers, and new grads aren't faring as well.

The winners and losers of the workforce are coming into sharper focus.

If you're looking for roles in healthcare or service work, you may have a very different experience than the white-collar workforce or new grads.

Overall, the latest jobs data shows that the labor market isn't looking too shabby; the number of payrolls added in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' May report exceeded economists' expectations, and the unemployment rate held steady.

But that doesn't mean all workers are navigating the labor market with ease. Instead, some are faring better than others. Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, said the new jobs report reflects that divide.

"The headline number says the train keeps chugging along," Stahle said, "but at the same time, not everybody is experiencing that same thing."

Here's who's winning in the job market right now

A few industries stood out in the most recent jobs report.

Employment in the private education and health services sector and the leisure and hospitality sector swelled. They alone accounted for over 100,000 new payrolls in May, and over the last three months have added around 374,000 jobs. In short, if you're trying to find a job in food service or home healthcare, the job market is in your favor.

Other sectors that added roles in May include construction and retail trade, although not at the same clip.

Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, said those service sectors have powered job growth, but "all of them have slowed in the first half of 2025 compared to the back half of 2024."

There were also some winners in the white-collar world. Job-stayers — whether they still want to be there or not — are at least reaping some financial rewards. Average hourly earnings for workers in the information sector, which includes many aspects of tech, shot up from a year ago, as well as pay for those in professional and business services.

For the white-collar workers who are waiting out the Big Stay, that's a win. Indeed, job stayers have a bit of a financial edge right now: Their raises are now slightly outpacing those of job switchers, per the Atlanta Federal Reserve, a big change from the days of the Great Resignation.

Who's losing in the job market right now

White-collar workers who are actively seeking a new role probably aren't feeling too hot; neither are new grads.

Employment growth in the information sector has been nonexistent since February, while employment fell by 19,000 in professional and business services during that time. The job switching pay premium has evaporated, and companies are taking longer to fill available roles.

One subsection of white-collar workers has reason to be especially nervous: Middle managers are getting flattened out of corporate structures in the name of efficiency.

Then, of course, there's the bottom rung of the labor market: New graduates trying to land a full-time role. The share of recent college graduates with jobs that don't require a degree ticked up in March, according to the New York Federal Reserve's analysis. Similarly, that data shows recent college graduates ages 22 to 27 had higher unemployment rates compared to the larger 16- to 65-year-old workforce, a reversal from longer-term historical trends.

"There's fewer people coming in, fewer people heading out," Guy Berger, the director of economic research at The Burning Glass Institute, said. "That mix tends to favor established workers who tend to be older and tends to hurt younger people trying to get their foot in the door."

Stahle said college and high school graduates are entering a frozen labor market where the quits rate is low, people are staying put, and employers aren't really looking for new folks.

"We're seeing unemployment rates rise most notably for those younger workers, college graduate-age workers — which is very different than what we've seen in the past, where those workers tend to do pretty well," Stahle said.

Are you a job seeker, middle manager, or new grad with a story to share? Contact these reporters at [email protected] and [email protected].

• Trump floated redirecting federal funding intended for Harvard to trade schools.
• His administration has highlighted the need to invest more in alternatives to a four-year college degree.
• With high student debt and a tough labor market, more people are questioning the value of a college degree.

President Donald Trump wants to tweak a traditional feature of the American dream: a college degree.

Trump has continued to escalate his battle with Harvard University, threatening to cut off the Ivy League school from federal funding if it does not meet the administration's demands, which include eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and cracking down on campus activism.

The latest threat against Harvard, however, floated shifting funding to trade schools, an alternative path to a four-year college degree.

"I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land," Trump wrote in a May 26 post on Truth Social. "What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!!"

The White House's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, added onto the president's comments in an interview with Fox News: "Apprenticeships, electricians, plumbers, we need more of those in our country, and less LGBTQ graduate majors from Harvard University. And that's what this administration's position is."

Over the past few years, a growing number of Americans have started to question the value of a college degree due to high costs and a tough labor market, making trade schools and apprenticeships a favorable alternative. It marks a shift in the standard American dream, in which a four-year college degree had been viewed as a step to middle-class success.

However, Jon Fansmith, assistant vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education, told Business Insider that taking funding away from Harvard and other research institutions isn't the answer to boosting investment in trade schools.

"The money that he is talking about withholding from Harvard is money that Congress provided to research agencies to perform advanced scientific and biomedical research," Fansmith said, adding that Harvard earned grant money because "they had the best researchers, the best laboratory facilities, the best understanding of how to advance that science," he continued. "You can't simply take that money and use it for another purpose."

Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Department of Education, told BI that "American universities that are committed to their academic mission, protect students on campus, and follow all federal laws will have no problem accessing generous taxpayer support for their programs."

'Two very separate stories'

Higher education doesn't have the same draw that it once did. Some Gen Zers previously told BI that despite being taught that college was the primary path to success, they felt they could make a living by directly entering the workforce or going to trade school.

That's why Trump's push to invest more in trade schools is important, Fansmith said — they help Americans get a stable career to support themselves and their families, and the federal government can help support those schools by asking Congress to approve more funding, not redirecting the funding unilaterally.

"There are two stories here. One is this administration's attack on Harvard, and the other is, what is the role of trade schools, and is there a need for more support for trade schools? And as much as the president's trying to conflate the two, those are two very separate stories," Fansmith said.

While Trump's big spending bill proposes some provisions to expand Pell grant eligibility to short-term programs, it does not detail a significant funding increase for trade schools.

The Trump administration's rhetorical focus on trade schools isn't new. Before he won the 2024 election, Linda McMahon, now Trump's education secretary, wrote an opinion piece in The Hill advocating for the expansion of Pell Grant eligibility to workforce training programs.

"Our educational system must offer clear and viable pathways to the American Dream aside from four-year degrees," she wrote.

Trump also signed an executive order on April 23 to strengthen and expand workforce development and apprenticeships programs, which McMahon called a "significant step in ensuring every American can live their American Dream."

Congress' role in rethinking education

For years, Democratic lawmakers have been pushing for greater access to postsecondary education options, like free community college, and there has been bipartisan agreement on the need to boost apprenticeships and workforce programs without redirecting funding from higher education institutions.

Amid the heightened focus on alternatives to a four-year college degree, the New York Federal Reserve said in a recent report that college still pays off; the median worker with a college degree earns about $80,000 a year, compared to $47,000 for a worker with just a high school diploma.

Trump hasn't yet implemented his idea to redirect Harvard's federal funding to trade schools, and it's unclear how, or if, he will attempt to follow through. While he has already withheld billions of dollars from Harvard and other schools across the country for failing to meet his administration's political demands, the moves have been met with lawsuits, and Fansmith said it's likely more legal action would ensue should Trump attempt to move around funding without congressional approval.

"We're talking about spending money that Congress said would go to support really critically needed research into things like cancer and Alzheimer's and diabetes, and other things that impact everyday Americans' lives, and give it to trade schools," Fansmith said. "Trade schools are great schools. They have lots of benefits. They deserve a lot of federal support, but not just to make a political point at the expense of Harvard."

Jason Altmire, president and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities — a group that represents for-profit colleges — said in a statement that Trump's focus on trade schools "is an investment in America's workforce."

"The best way to support trade schools is to reduce the regulatory burden facing private career schools while increasing funding that allows students interested in the trades to choose the highest quality school," Altmire said.

Have you decided to skip college for a different path, like trade school? Share your story with this reporter at [email protected].

• Kate Rouch, OpenAI's chief marketing officer, said she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
• Rouch said she is expected to make a full recovery and urged other women to prioritize their health.
• She said she leaned on OpenAI's ChatGPT to navigate her treatment.

Kate Rouch, the chief marketing officer at OpenAI, shared on Friday that she was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer weeks after assuming the role, which she called her "dream job," in December.

In a thread posted on X, Rouch said she was sharing her story to help other women, adding, "We can't control what happens to us--but we can choose how we face it. My biggest lesson: no one fights alone."

Prior to joining OpenAI as the company's first CMO, Rouch was CMO at Coinbase and, before that, spent over a decade at Meta, including as vice president, global head of brand and product marketing.

Rouch said she started treatment right around the Super Bowl in February, when OpenAI aired its first-ever ad, and that she has since gone through 13 rounds of chemotherapy while leading OpenAI's marketing team. She wrote that she is expected to make a full recovery.

"It has been the hardest season of life — for me, for my husband, and for our two young children," Rouch said, adding she has been supported by OpenAI "at every step."

"Silicon Valley can be brutal and transactional. And yet — I've never felt more held," she said, adding that "people showed up in incredible and unexpected ways."

Rouch also said OpenAI's ChatGPT has helped her navigate her diagnosis and treatment, including by explaining cancer in a way that is age-appropriate for her kids, helping her manage the side effects of chemo, and creating custom meditations.

"Experiencing our work as a patient has made OpenAI's mission feel more personal and important," she said.

Rouch said she was sharing her story to encourage other women to "prioritize their health over the demands of families and jobs."

"A routine exam saved my life. It could save yours, too," she said.

Business Insider reached out to OpenAI for comment.

Kevin Weil, the chief product officer at OpenAI, expressed support for Rouch in a reply to her thread.

"We love you @kate_rouch!" he wrote. "Proud of you for telling your story and for being so full of fight."

• Top Trump officials are meeting Chinese negotiators in London on Monday.
• This would be the first official US-China talk since a temporary tariff truce on May 12.
• International trade experts have said that Trump could be under pressure to strike a deal.

Three top Trump administration economic officials will face off against Chinese negotiators in a renewed effort to break the US-China trade deadlock.

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will be meeting China's delegation in London on Monday.

"The meeting should go very well," President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post announcing the talks.

This coming meeting will be the first official talk between the two countries since they mutually lowered tariffs in a temporary truce on May 12, after talks in Geneva.

The renewed talks follow a 90-minute phone call between Trump and China's leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, a rare direct conversation that Trump later described as "very good." According to Trump, the two leaders also agreed to visit each other in person, without providing more details in terms of a timeline.

The Chinese Embassy of Washington did not respond to a request for who would be attending this negotiation from its side. The team they sent to Geneva consisted of Vice Premier He Lifeng, Vice Commerce Minister Li Chenggang, and Vice Finance Minister Liao Min.

Notably, Li has a Master of Laws from the University of Hamburg in Germany and has been part of China's delegation to the World Trade Organization since 2021.

International trade experts previously told Business Insider that much is at stake for both China and the US to strike a deal, or at the very least, continue the truce beyond August 12 when the 90-day tariff pause will expire.

"The Trump administration made their job harder because the tariff policies they've implemented are costly to Americans and American companies, and therefore, the market doesn't like it," said Philip Luck, director of the CSIS Economics Program. "They are under a lot of pressure to do things fast."

Meanwhile, a lawsuit that threatens to undo all of Trump's tariffs enacted under the IEEPA also looms over negotiations with China.

Drew DeLong, lead in geopolitical dynamics practice at Kearney, a global strategy and management consulting firm, told BI that if the court strikes down tariffs before trade deals could come to pass, other routes of imposing tariffs could be more complicated and time-consuming.

The White House did not provide Business Insider with any additional comment beyond Trump's Truth Social post.

• Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick clashed with a congresswoman over where bananas can be grown.
• The president's April tariffs include a 10% baseline on all imports, which is driving up grocery prices.
• Much of the US lacks the tropical climate that bananas would need to grow.

The Secretary of Commerce and a Congresswoman just clashed over whether bananas can and should be grown in the US.

"There's no uncertainty if you build in America and you produce your product in America, there will be no tariff," Howard Lutnick told Rep. Madeleine Dean of Philadelphia during a House hearing on Thursday morning.

Dean was saying that for her constituents in suburban Philadelphia, Trump's tariffs would cause at least a $2,000 a year price increase on goods. She specifically called out the price of bananas and said Walmart has already hiked the price of the fruit by 8%.

"We can't produce bananas in America," the Democratic congresswoman responded.

"The concept of building in America and paying no tariff is very, very clear," Lutnick said.

"We cannot build bananas in America," Dean repeated.

Large-scale banana farms are not viable in much of the US. However, bananas are grown in Hawaii and in parts of Florida, and can be grown in other parts of the Southern United States. In 2023, Hawaii produced 4.73 million pounds of the fruit, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Rep. Dean's office did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

The debate over bananas took place over a House hearing about trade deficits and the uncertainty Trump's tariff plan has caused since its rollout in April.

Under Trump's April 2 tariffs, a 10% baseline tariff applies to all goods imported into the US, including bananas. Though additional higher tariffs on trading partners are currently on pause for a limited time, some additional tariffs apply for products from China, as well as for imports of all steel and some other categories of metals.

Banana plants thrive in tropical regions with average temperatures of 80°F and a recommended relative humidity of 70 to 80%, according to EOS Data Analytics. The data company that provides crop monitoring services also wrote that farmers grow most bananas within a 30-degree range north and south of the equator.

According to figures from the American Farm Bureau Federation, in 2023, Guatemala supplied 40% of bananas consumed in the US by value, followed by Ecuador and Costa Rica, each contributing 16%.

Walmart and the Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

• DeepSeek's latest and greatest AI model update went largely unnoticed by the tech industry.
• Earlier this year, everyone freaked out about DeepSeek's R1 model, sparking a slump in tech stocks.
• Here's why the industry kinda shrugged this time.

DeepSeek updated its R1 AI model a few days ago. It performs better and it's still cheaper than most other top models.

Did you miss it? I missed it. Or I saw the news briefly and then forgot about it. Most of the tech industry and investors greeted the launch with a giant shrug.

This is a pretty stark contrast to early 2025 when DeepSeek's R1 model freaked everyone out. Tech stocks plunged and the generative AI spending boom was seriously questioned.

This time, DeepSeek's rollout "came and went without a blip," Ross Sandler, a top tech analyst at Barclays, wrote in a note to investors.

"The stock market couldn't care less," he added. "This tells us that the investment community's level of understanding on the AI trade has greatly improved in just five short months."

An unscientific DeepSeek poll

I polled my colleagues on Business Insider's tech team on Friday, just to see if I'd been spending too much time watching Elon Musk and Donald Trump argue on social media (rather than doing my real job).

Here are some of their responses:

• One editor said they didn't notice DeepSeek's update, but now they feel guilty for not spotting it. (Solid thinking. Only the paranoid survive in journalism).
• Another colleague said they knew about it from their quick headline scans, but didn't read too much into it.
• A tech reporter saw a Reddit thread about it, scanned it, and didn't think about it again.
• Another reporter said they missed it entirely.
• Another editor: "hadn't noticed tbh!"

So, it barely registered. And these folks are glued to tech news every second of the day.

Why does no one really care now?

DeepSeek's latest R1 model is probably the third best in the world right now, so why isn't it making waves like before?

Sandler, the Barclays analyst, noted that DeepSeek's latest offering is not quite as cheap as it used to be, relatively speaking. It costs just under $1 per million tokens, which was roughly 27 times cheaper than OpenAI's o1 model earlier this year.

Now, DeepSeek's R1 is "only" about 17 times cheaper than the top model, according to Barclays research and data from Artificial Analysis' AI Intelligence Index.

This illustrates a broader and more important point. Something I've been telling you about since last year: Most top AI models are roughly similar in performance because they've mostly been training on the same data from the internet.

This makes it hard to stand out from the crowd, based just on performance. When you leap ahead, your inventions and gains are incorporated quickly into everyone else's offerings.

Price is important, yes. But distribution is becoming key. If your employer has an enterprise ChatGPT account, for instance, you're highly likely to use OpenAI models at work. It's just easier. If you have an Android smartphone, you'll probably be talking to Google's Gemini chatbot and getting responses from the search giant's AI models.

DeepSeek doesn't have this type of broad distribution yet, at least in the Western world.

Was the AI infrastructure freakout misplaced?

Then, there's the realization that "reasoning" models, such as DeepSeek's R1 and OpenAI's o3, require a massive amount of computing power to run. This is due to their ability to break requests down into multiple "thinking" steps. Each step is a new kind of prompt that is turned into a huge number of new tokens that need to be processed.

The DeepSeek freakout in January happened mostly because the tech industry worried that the Chinese lab had developed more efficient models that didn't need as much computing infrastructure.

In fact, this Chinese lab may have instead helped popularize these new types of reasoning models, which might require even more GPUs and other computing gear to run.

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• Brookfield Properties has cut several executives in its office division as the company restructures.
• The firm has evolved from a property-focused firm into a Wall Street fund manager like Blackstone.
• The new structure will break down regional management in favor of national business leaders.

Brookfield Properties, which operates one of the country's largest commercial real estate portfolios, laid off a handful of executives in its office division on Thursday, according to a person with direct knowledge of the downsizing.

In its New York headquarters, the firm let go of three office leasing executives, an executive who oversees asset management, and an employee who was part of an internal group that manages art installations and events, the person familiar with the cuts said. Nationally, "a handful" of people were let go, including roles in Los Angeles and Houston, the person said.

Brookfield Properties is a subsidiary property investment manager for Brookfield, an investment firm that holds more than $1 trillion in assets, including 65 million square feet of US office space.

An internal memo sent to Brookfield Properties employees and shared with Business Insider said the shift reflected the company's transition from a manager of long-term office investments to one that would oversee various strategies and that would need to reap and recycle capital through more frequent asset sales.

"The evolution of our business — from one largely comprised of forever-hold, balance sheet assets to a mix that also includes properties held in fund strategies with varied hold periods and return goals — has led us to examine our organizational structure," the memo read.

Brookfield was once well known for its focus on commercial real estate, particularly office buildings, such as Brookfield Place, a large commercial complex it owns in Lower Manhattan. It now controls investments across categories like insurance, credit, infrastructure, and real estate, and has become one of the world's largest investment firms. In recent years, that evolution has drawn comparisons to other major asset managers like Blackstone.

The latest move restructures the office business's management and operations, which had been previously organized around regions of the country, into a more nationally focused team, the person familiar with the cuts said.

In 2023, Brookfield Properties appointed Bobby Swennes as the US president of its office division. Swennes's role remains unchanged, but with the new structure, Brookfield Properties announced that several executives will now take national roles under him.

"We will drive the business by function rather than geography, transitioning from a region-head model to a function-lead model," the company's memo stated. "This structure will enhance portfolio-wide strategy and decision-making."

As part of its broader shift to asset management, Brookfield Properties has cut back on in-house operations personnel to manage its real estate portfolio in favor of third-party service providers. Last year, for instance, the company outsourced property management of its US office portfolio to the real estate services and brokerage firm CBRE.

Brookfield's office business has also been bruised in past years as part of the aftereffects of the pandemic, which reduced office occupancy and demand. The company defaulted on a collection of office towers in downtown Los Angeles. In 2023, Brookfield Properties laid off dozens of workers, according to written reports at the time.

Brookfield's focus on higher-end properties has helped its office portfolio rebound from that dip.

The company has also bulked up in areas of the property market beyond office, including rental apartment buildings and industrial warehouses, categories where it has acquired a combined $10 billion of assets in the past year and a half.

• Omada Health just became the second digital health company to IPO this year.
• The chronic care company saw its shares jump Friday morning by over 38% above its initial price.
• Here's what Omada's major investors' stakes are worth after the public market debut.

Omada Health just went public at a $1.1 billion valuation — 14 years after its founding.

It's the second digital health IPO of the year, following physical therapy company Hinge Health, which went public on May 21. The two IPOs come after a multiyear drought for healthcare public market debuts.

And so far, Omada's IPO hasn't disappointed. While the chronic care company priced its initial shares at $19, its stock opened at $23 a share and jumped as high as $28.40 Friday morning, nearly a 50% increase.

Omada Health launched in 2011 to provide virtual care for prediabetes, making its name in the years following for diabetes management.

In recent years, its business has surged in new areas beyond diabetes care. Omada's weight care business has boomed as more patients taking GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic for weight loss seek companion care. The San Francisco-based company says most of its new employer and health plan clients approach Omada initially, interested in its metabolic health track.

Omada's initial valuation of $1.1 billion is roughly where it was privately valued. Omada's last private fundraise, a $192 million Series E round announced in February 2022, put Omada's valuation over $1 billion.

It's perhaps the best outcome Omada's investors could've hoped for, given that many digital health startups now looking to IPO last raised at huge valuations during VC's ZIRP period. Those valuations could be difficult to realize in today's market. Hinge Health, for example, went public at a $2.6 billion valuation after being valued in its 2021 fundraise at $6.2 billion.

We don't know what Omada Health's investors paid for their shares, so we can't calculate their profit. However, since Omada's shares opened on the stock market at $23, we used that price to determine the worth of its investors' stakes. None of Omada's major investors sold any shares in its IPO.

Here's what the stakes of Omada Health's major investors and executives are worth after its IPO.

Revelation Partners, an investor: $120 million

Revelation Partners is a healthcare-focused investment firm that says it provides flexible capital to companies, especially to give liquidity to startups.

The firm first invested in Omada in September 2019, according to its website. Revelation Partners told Business Insider in an email that the firm invested in Omada through a series of secondary transactions. Omada hasn't mentioned Revelation Partners in previous press releases about its fundraises.

Revelation Partners owns about 5.2 million shares, or 9.3% of the company. At the $23 market debut price, the firm's stake is worth about $120 million.

US Venture Partners, an investor: $108.5 million

San Francisco-based US Venture Partners makes early-stage investments across healthcare, software, consumer, and security. The firm says it's invested $4.5 billion across 532 companies.

USVP led Omada Health's $4.7 million Series A fundraise in 2013. The firm contributed additional financing in Omada's Series B through D rounds.

General partner Dr. Jonathan Root has served on Omada's board of directors since the firm's 2013 investment.

USVP owns about 4.72 million shares, or 8.5% of Omada Health. At the $23 market debut price, the firm's stake is worth about $108.5 million.

Andreessen Horowitz, an investor: $106 million

VC giant Andreessen Horowitz, or A16z, first invested in Omada Health in 2015, when the firm led Omada's $23 million Series B.

The firm went on to invest in Omada's Series C and D fundraises, per PitchBook.

At the time of A16z's 2015 investment, former general partner Balaji Srinivasan joined Omada's board of directors. It's unclear when he stepped down from the board; he moved into a part-time role at A16z that same year.

A16z owns about 4.6 million shares, or 8.3% of the company. At the $23 market debut price, the firm's stake is worth about $106 million.

Fidelity Management and Research Company, an investor: $102 million

Fidelity Management and Research Company is the parent company of financial services giant Fidelity Investments. Fidelity has invested in a handful of healthcare startups over the years, leading rounds like now-public insurtech Oscar Health's $400 million raise in 2016 and smart ring maker Oura's $200 million Series D in December.

FMR led Omada's $192 million Series E fundraise in February 2022.

Fidelity owns about 4.4 million shares, or 8.0% of the company. At the $23 market debut price, the firm's stake is worth about $102 million.

Cigna Ventures, an investor: $79 million

Health insurance giant Cigna spun out a venture capital arm in 2018 to back healthcare companies. Omada Health was one of the firm's first bets.

Cigna began working with the diabetes company in 2015. Two years later, the insurer announced an investment in Omada, leading a $50 million round in 2017 that Cigna Ventures later called Omada's Series C-1 financing.

Cigna also expanded its partnership with Omada as part of its formal investment.

Cigna Ventures owns about 3.4 million shares, or 6.2% of the company. At the $23 market debut price, the firm's stake is worth about $79 million.

aMoon Fund, an investor: $62 million

Israeli VC firm aMoon fund invests in healthcare and life sciences companies from early to late stages. Founded in 2016, it has backed a number of biotech companies that later went public, including Sophia Genetics, which went public in 2021, and Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, which went public in 2022.

The firm first invested in Omada Health in its $192 million Series E round in 2022.

"The entire space of all these clusters of diseases that includes diabetes, hypertension, and obesity is going through a major revolution right now," aMoon Fund managing partner Tomer Berkowitz told BI. "The solution in the end will not just be based on drugs, but it'll be a combination of drugs and behavioral change. I think Omada plays a significant role in that."

aMoon owns about 2.7 million shares, or 4.9% of the company. At the $23 market debut price, the firm's stake is worth about $62 million.

Norwest Venture Partners, an investor: $58 million

San Francisco-based Norwest Venture Partners invests in early- to late-stage startups. It's backed more than 700 companies and manages over $15.5 billion in assets, per the firm. Its healthcare portfolio also includes hospital operations AI company Qventus, which raised $105 million in January led by private equity firm KKR, and behavioral health site Talkspace, which went public in a 2021 SPAC deal.

The firm led Omada's $48 million Series C round in 2015 and put additional funding into Omada's Series C-1 and D rounds.

Norwest owns about 2.5 million shares, or 4.5% of the company. At the $23 market debut price, the firm's stake is worth about $58 million.

Sean Duffy, CEO: $46 million

Sean Duffy cofounded Omada Health alongside Adrian James, Omada's former president, and Andrew DiMichele, former chief technology officer, in 2011. The startup sought to use technology to deliver care for chronic conditions, initially focusing on prediabetes, to patients in between visits with their primary care providers.

Duffy and James spun Omada out of the design and consulting firm IDEO, where they'd begun researching the challenges in prediabetes and metabolic disease care. For Duffy, the IDEO gig had begun as an internship while he was getting dual MD-MBA degrees at Harvard. Instead of returning to complete his studies, he turned his focus to the idea that would become Omada.

Before Omada, Duffy had created the interactive Microsoft Excel training tool Excel Everest, written about healthcare innovation for the medtech blog Medgadget, and worked in people analytics at Google.

Duffy owns about 2 million shares, or 3.5% of Omada Health. That number includes about 860,000 shares of common stock and 1.15 million stock options exercisable by May 30, according to Omada's S-1 filing.

At the $23 market debut price, his stake is worth about $46 million.

Wei-Li Shao, president: $13 million

Wei-Li Shao has served as Omada's president since 2021. He first joined the company in 2021 as its chief commercial officer.

Before Omada, Li spent a combined 17 years at Eli Lilly managing a number of the pharma giant's businesses and brands, including its Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and neurosciences businesses.

Shao owns about 579,095 stock options exercisable by May 30, representing 1.0% of the company. He does not own any common stock.

At the $23 market debut price, his stake is worth about $13 million.

Steve Cook, CFO: $7.9 million

Steve Cook joined Omada Health as its chief financial officer in 2021. He'd previously led strategic finance efforts at primary care chain One Medical through its 2020 IPO. Before that, he spent six years in finance and strategy at Salesforce.

Cook owns about 340,000 stock options exercisable by May 30, giving him less than 1% ownership. He does not own any shares of common stock.

At the $23 market debut price, his stake is worth about $7.9 million.

Trevor Fetter, board member: $5.3 million

Trevor Fetter has served on Omada's board of directors since March 2021. He's a senior lecturer at Harvard University and the lead independent director of insurance business The Hartford.

Fetter is best known as the former chairman and CEO of health system giant Tenet Healthcare, a position he held for 15 years.

Fetter also holds advisory positions at multiple other private and public companies, sitting on the board of directors at healthtech startup Biofourmis and serving as a member of the advisory board of private equity firm TowerBrook Capital Partners.

Fetter owns about 231,000 shares, or less than 1% of the company. That number includes about 111,000 shares of common stock and 120,000 stock options exercisable by May 30.

At the $23 market debut price, his stake is worth about $5.3 million.

Jeryl Hilleman, chair of the board of directors: $4.8 million

Jeryl Hilleman has spent the majority of her career as a serial CFO, holding the lead finance role at five different companies across industries, including software, biotech, and medtech. All five companies were ultimately acquired.

Today, Hilleman is the chair of Omada's board of directors, a position she's held since 2019. She also serves on the boards of cancer therapeutics maker Novocure, which completed its IPO in February, as well as public medtech company Si-Bone and public vaccine maker HilleVax.

Hilleman owns about 210,000 stock options exercisable by May 30, which gives her less than 1% ownership of Omada. She does not own any common stock.

At the $23 market debut price, her stake is worth about $4.8 million.

Dr. Sachin Jain, board member: $604,000

Dr. Sachin Jain is the president and CEO of Medicare Advantage provider SCAN Health Plan. He joined Omada's board of directors in August.

Jain is also a professor of medicine at Stanford and a practicing academic hospitalist at the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Previously, he was a senior advisor to the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the president and CEO of CareMore Health and Aspire Health, and the chief medical information and innovation officer at Merck.

Jain owns about 26,000 stock options exercisable by May 30, representing less than 1% of the company. He does not own any common stock.

At the $23 market debut price, his stake is worth about $604,000.

Julie Klapstein, board member: $527,000

Omada Health added Julie Klapstein to its board of directors in August. Klapstein was the founding CEO of Availity, one of the largest health information networks in the country. She spent nearly 11 years at Availity after its 2001 founding.

Since Availity, she's served as a board member at nearly two dozen public and private companies, including healthcare companies like value-based primary care chain Oak Street Health and investment firms like PE firm Riverside Partners. She's also been an advisor to Andreessen Horowitz, most recently serving as a partner advisor from 2023 through April, per her LinkedIn.

Klapstein owns about 23,000 stock options exercisable by May 30, representing less than 1% of the company. She does not own any common stock.

At the $23 market debut price, her stake is worth about $527,000.

Adam Stavisky, board member: $527,000

Omada added Adam Stavisky to its board of directors in August, alongside Klapstein and Jain.

He most recently spent six years as the senior vice president of US benefits at Walmart. Before that, he spent 13 years at Fidelity, leaving as its head of benefits consulting. In addition to his role at Omada, he's a member of the board of advisors at marketing agency StrawberryFrog.

Stavisky owns about 23,000 stock options exercisable by May 30, representing less than 1% of Omada Health. He does not own any common stock.

At the $23 market debut price, his stake is worth about $527,000.

Dr. Anne Beal, board member: $380,000

Omada added Dr. Anne Beal to its board of directors in October. Beal is the founder of AbsoluteJOI Skincare, a science-based clean beauty company. She's also a board member at pharma giant GSK and life sciences company Prolacta Biosciences.

She previously served as the chief patient officer at biopharma behemoth Sanofi.

Beal owns about 17,000 stock options exercisable by May 30, representing less than 1% of Omada Health. She does not own any common stock.

At the $23 market debut price, her stake is worth about $380,000.

• The world's richest person and most powerful person are fighting.
• Donald Trump and Elon Musk's devolving relationship has potential ramifications for politics, tech, and business.
• These are the big takeaways from that relationship's very public disintegration.

Elon Musk, the world's richest person, and President Donald Trump, the world's most powerful person, have had a working relationship that touches on everything from party politics to spaceflight.

As that relationship disintegrates in full public view, there are major ramifications — and revelations — from their feud.

Whether you're catching up or avidly following the latest play-by-play as it unfolds online, these are 4 major bombshells and takeaways from their apparent falling out.

It was a $138 billion fight

It may be a war of words, but when the dust settled, both Musk and Tesla emerged worth significantly less for it.

Tesla shares in the EV giant closed down over 14% on Thursday, wiping $138 billion off the company's valuation. Musk saw his net worth drop by $34 billion.

The feud, if it persists, means Musk could lose some of the MAGA might who had previously rushed to his defense when Tesla's stock was dropping.

When Tesla's value was falling in March amid brand backlash, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged people to buy Tesla stock. Trump then bought a Tesla at a White House event with Musk. After their row, Trump is considering selling it.

CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson wrote in a note following the public fallout on Thursday that investors should "buckle up" and expect more volatility in the near term. The automaker's stock price recovered slightly in overnight trading, but Tesla could lose one of its biggest backers if Trump decides he's done with his onetime "first buddy."

Thomas Monteiro, an analyst at Investing.com, told Business Insider that Tesla's stock had already been "extremely overvalued" because of perceiving added benefits from Musk's close relationship with Trump.

"Once you remove the buffer that was shielding the company, investors are forced to look at the actual internal numbers, and they are simply not consistent with the stock's performance this year," Monteiro said. "With sales down across the board in what seems now like a sustained trend, it's very hard to look past the brand devaluation factor."

Trump could also move to make life harder for Tesla on the regulatory front. Tesla is also gearing up to launch a flagship robotaxi service in Austin this month, and Musk has been pushing for the Trump administration to overhaul the autonomous vehicle regulations that stand in the way of his ambitious plans.

Trump threatened Musk's government contracts, and NASA relies on SpaceX

As the fight escalated, Trump said on TruthSocial on Thursday that cutting Musk's companies' government contracts would save "Billions and Billions."

Monteiro said that if Trump were to follow through on his threat, the potential cut to government contracts would likely impact SpaceX more than Tesla.

Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, has around $22 billion in federal contracts and counts NASA as its largest customer, its CEO Gwynne Shotwell said last November.

The space agency is set to use SpaceX's Starship rocket in its coming Artemis moon missions, and SpaceX also has numerous contracts with the Department of Defense, including a nearly $6 billion deal to launch national security satellites struck in April.

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft is the only US vessel capable of carrying passengers and cargo to and from the International Space Station, and also has a nearly $1 billion contract to deorbit it in 2030. The move floated by Trump sparked concerns that it could mark the end of the International Space Station and leave it without a safe deorbiting plan.

Musk responded to Trump's Truth Social post by saying SpaceX would begin decommissioning the Dragon immediately, although he later backed down.

Musk is mulling a new political party — and could try to bring his MAGA fans with him

With both Musk and Trump commanding massive followings that have increasingly overlapped in the last year, Trump could soon find himself fighting to convince some of them to stay on his side.

The president could also lose one of his largest backers.

In addition to pouring over $270 million into efforts to elect Trump, Musk also used his social media platform as a promotional outlet for the president.

Now, Musk is polling his followers to determine whether it's time to create a new political party. He racked up over 5.6 million votes in the span of 24 hours, with about 80% voting in favor of the idea. Mark Cuban seemed to support it, reposting Musk's poll on X and replying with three check marks.

It's unclear whether it's an idea Musk is seriously considering. However, if he did follow through, it could result in more turmoil with Trump and increased tensions within the Republican Party.

While Musk replied "Yes" to a post that included a reference to impeaching Trump, several Republicans, including Vice President JD Vance, made their allegiance to Trump known.

Meanwhile, high-profile backers of both have also pushed the two to reconcile. Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman shared a post on X in support of both Trump and Musk and called for the two to "make peace for the benefit of our country." Musk didn't seem completely opposed to extending the olive branch with Trump, commenting on the post, "You're not wrong."

Musk also reshared a post that said, "Tech needs Republicans for the present. Republicans need Tech for the future. Drop the tax cuts, cut some pork, get the bill through."

Both men aired dirty laundry about each other

The escalating feud offered a window into how each of the men view their devolving relationship — and they didn't appear to hold much back in their criticism.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday that "Elon was 'wearing thin,'" and was asked by Trump to leave his position in the White House.

"I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY," Trump posted.

He also said that Musk had seen the "Big Beautiful Bill" that he lashed out against, and only developed an issue with it when he discovered that it would cut EV mandates. Musk fired back, implying Trump had lied and that he had never seen the bill.

Musk also made it clear that he felt responsible for Trump's election victory.

"Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," he wrote. "Such ingratitude," he added.

Then it was "time to drop the really big bomb," as Muck described it, alleging that Trump is in the "Epstein files" and that was the "real reason they have not been made public." (Trump's past ties to Epstein have been publicly known, and Trump has said the two had a falling out more than 15 years ago and that he wasn't a fan of the convicted sex offender.

While it's unclear if Musk and Trump will repair their rift, Thursday's public blowup made one thing clear: both are willing to roll up their sleeves and punch back.

• A high-profile Paul Weiss lawyer is leaving five months after rejoining the firm.
• Damian Williams is joining Jenner & Block, a Big Law firm fighting the Trump administration.
• Williams served as US Attorney in Manhattan, one of the most powerful Justice Department positions.

Damian Williams, one of the most prominent federal prosecutors in the country, is walking away from the law firm that struck a deal with Donald Trump — and joining one that's suing him.

Williams is leaving Paul Weiss five months after returning to the firm to work for Jenner & Block, a law firm actively challenging the Trump administration in court.

Jenner & Block announced the move Friday. Williams will serve as co-chair of both the firm's Litigation Department and its Investigations, Compliance, and Defense Practice.

The high-profile defection is a blow for Paul Weiss, an elite law firm that was the first to broker an agreement with President Donald Trump in March. As part of the deal, Paul Weiss said it would devote $40 million in pro bono hours toward Trump's political priorities. After it was announced, Trump rescinded an executive order that would have, among other sanctions, stripped Paul Weiss employees of security clearances and cut off government contracts.

Eight other firms have since made similar deals with the White House. Four — including Jenner & Block — opted to sue instead. All four have won court rulings blocking Trump's orders.

"Jenner & Block fearlessly advocates for its clients and provides outstanding strategic counsel through their most difficult challenges," Williams said in a press release. "I've seen firsthand how this firm expertly tackles the toughest cases and lives its values."

"I'm excited to join a team with an extraordinary depth of legal talent that doesn't shy away from hard fights — and delivers results that matter," his statement continued.

Williams isn't the only notable attorney to leave Paul Weiss in recent weeks. Karen Dunn, a prominent litigator who helped Kamala Harris prepare for her 2024 presidential debate with Trump, left along with three other top lawyers last month to start a new boutique law firm.

Williams previously served as the US Attorney in the Southern District of New York, one of the most powerful perches in the Justice Department. Williams brought criminal cases against Sean "Diddy" Combs, Sam Bankman-Fried, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and now-former Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

Before that, Williams worked at Paul Weiss between 2009 and 2012 and clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens on the US Supreme Court and Merrick Garland on the federal appeals court in Washington, DC.

In Paul Weiss' January announcement about his return, Williams praised the firm's "devotion to pro bono."

"Damian is a transcendently talented lawyer who has led many of the government's highest-profile prosecutions and investigations," Paul Weiss's chair Brad Karp said at the time. "He will be an exceptional addition to our already outstanding team of white collar and regulatory lawyers and a leader in the national legal community."

A representative for Paul Weiss didn't respond to a request for comment Friday.