• Federal workers were emailed Saturday with a request to list productivity details from their week.
• Elon Musk said that those who don't reply by 11:59 p.m. on Monday will have forfeited their role.
• Many federal employees told BI they feel frustrated by the request. Some have already been told not to respond.

Several federal workers across agencies told Business Insider they're frustrated and scared for their jobs after Elon Musk said they must email their work accomplishments or risk losing their jobs.

Some say they're skeptical of the ramifications — others have been told not to respond.

The productivity-tracking email, sent Saturday afternoon from an HR account in the Office of Personnel Management, followed President Donald Trump's request that Musk "get more aggressive." It's the latest of DOGE's sweeping initiatives that have resulted in mass firings, funding pauses, and work stoppages in departments and agencies across the federal government.

Musk, the face of the White House DOGE office, teased that the email would be forthcoming in a post on X Saturday, writing: "Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation."

"It's terrible," one Department of Education employee whose work has been slowed by executive orders and layoffs said. "It feels like harassment, especially sending it out on a Saturday and boasting about it in advance on X so that everyone could be checking their email afternoon in anticipation of its arrival."

Another federal employee — from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — said they "can only imagine how many people they'll fire based on the responses/non-responses to this."

An additional employee wondered "how much money is being wasted" on having federal employees respond to the email, while yet another questioned who would review the replies.

A probationary federal worker told BI that they agreed with the need to cut waste, but felt that "taking a sledgehammer" to federal agencies isn't the best way to approach the issue.

"As part of the Trump Administration's commitment to an efficient and accountable federal workforce, OPM is asking employees to provide a brief summary of what they did last week by the end of Monday, CC'ing their manager," an Office of Personnel Management spokesperson confirmed to BI in a statement. "Agencies will determine any next steps."

Many of the federal workers who spoke with BI said that hours after the DOGE email had been sent, they had still not received any communication from their supervisors regarding how or whether to respond.

"No idea how to respond being as this is from outside our chain of command," one federal worker told BI.

Others said they had been instructed by their union representatives or managers to wait for further direction before replying.

"Once again, agencies were caught off guard by these emails, just like the chaotic "Fork in the Road" email," the National Treasury Employees Union wrote in an email to its members, urging them not to respond until they receive further guidance. "This email is yet another attempt by the administration to scare hardworking civil servants who deliver for the American people every day. It is shameful. We will update you soon."

The American Federation of Government Employees said in a Sunday letter to the OPM that the email "fails to identify any legal authority permitting OPM to demand the requested information."

"Federal employees report to their respective agencies through their established chains of command; they do not report to OPM," the AFGE letter reads. "The email was nothing more than an irresponsible and sophomoric attempt to create confusion and bully the hard-working federal employees that serve our country."

The productivity email that was sent to federal workers did not include Musk's comment on X that employees who did not respond by the Monday night deadline would be considered as having resigned. Several workers who saw his post said they wondered whether that would be possible — or legal.

"I question whether them firing people based on a nonresponse to this would be legal," the Department of Education employee said. "There are a number of agencies, like DOJ, which has attorney-client privilege, or DHS, which engages with national security topics, where people will surely be told by supervisors not to respond."

Some of the federal workers who spoke to Business Insider had resolved not to respond. Others, disheartened by the aggressive funding and job cuts propelled by the White House DOGE office, said they had begun looking for other work even if they didn't believe they'd be fired.

A member of the Department of Health and Human Services' Disaster Medical Assistance Team, part time disaster workers who respond to federal disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, suggested they might resign either way.

"I have another job like the rest of us and I don't need this type of stress," the DMAT member said. "Maybe I'll just resign."

The employee said they're part of a group of people that thrives "in stressful situations," but that the stress of having their job in limbo "is different."

Are you a federal employee who received this email? Share your thoughts by using a non-work device to email [email protected] and [email protected].

• Sam Altman, in a Saturday post on X, announced his baby had been born "early."
• The newborn will be "in the NICU for awhile," the OpenAI CEO said, but added, "he is doing well."
• "I have never felt such love," Altman wrote.

Sam Altman has welcomed a baby, he announced Saturday in a post on X.

"welcome to the world, little guy!" the OpenAI head wrote, alongside a close-up photo of the newborn, with the baby's hand grasping an adult's finger.

"He came early and is going to be in the nicu for awhile," Altman continued, referring to the neonatal intensive care unit, where newborns receive specialized medical treatment after birth. "He is doing well and it's really nice to be in a little bubble taking care of him. i have never felt such love."

Altman, who is married to software engineer Oliver Mulherin, hasn't said if he plans to take paternity leave, but the new addition comes at a busy time for the OpenAI leader. The artificial intelligence company is in the middle of a significant transition from a nonprofit entity, having announced plans in December to transfer control of daily operations to its for-profit subsidiary. The move has attracted legal challenges from OpenAI's competitor, Elon Musk.

Representatives for OpenAI declined to comment on the birth when reached by Business Insider.

In a January 6 episode of the Re:Thinking podcast hosted by Adam Grant, Altman said he was expecting a child, adding that children in the future will never know a world without AI that's smarter than they are.

"And that'll be natural," Altman told Grant. "And, of course, it's smarter than us. Of course, it can do things we can't, but also who really cares? I think it's only weird for us in this one transition time."

The birth announcement quickly made waves through the tech world, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sending well wishes in a response on X, writing: "My heartfelt congratulations, @sama! Parenthood is one of life's most profound and rewarding experiences. Wishing you and your family the very best."

Altman and Mulherin married in January 2024 in an intimate ceremony. The pair, who live together in San Francisco, have led a relatively private relationship, making one of their first public appearances in 2023 when the OpenAI CEO brought Mulherin to a White House dinner.

In a September 2023 interview with New York Magazine, Altman said that the pair planned to have kids soon.

• The White House DOGE office is continuing to crack down on federal employees.
• On Saturday, federal workers got an email asking them to list what they accomplished last week.
• Some federal workers told BI they weren't sure how to respond, given work stoppage orders.

The White House DOGE office had an email sent to federal employees on Saturday asking them to list what work they accomplished in the last week.

The subject of the email, which was seen by Business Insider, read, "What did you do last week?"

"Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager," the message sent from the OPM's HR email address reads. "Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is the Monday at 11:59pmEST."

The emails followed President Donald Trump's instruction to Elon Musk to "get more aggressive" in reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy. Musk had teased that the emails would be forthcoming in a subsequent post on X, writing: "Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation," but the email received by employees did not detail any potential consequences for failing to reply by the deadline.

One Department of Education employee whose work has been affected by executive orders and layoffs told Business Insider that they planned to check in with their supervisor before responding to the email and were uncertain how to reply.

"Everything I normally do is on hold because they are reviewing it so I'm at a total work stoppage," the Department of Education employee said. "I could go into everything I normally do that they are currently holding up. Another approach would be not to respond."

Are you a federal employee who received this email from the DOGE office? Tell the reporters of this article how you plan to respond by using a non-work device to email [email protected] and [email protected].

The email also confounded and frustrated other federal employees who spoke to Business Insider.

"No idea how to respond being as this is from outside our chain of command," one federal worker told BI. "This is pure harassment."

Another federal employee — from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — said they "can only imagine how many people they'll fire based on the responses/non-responses to this."

"I'm not running cover for this horseshit," one employee of the Federal Communications Commission told BI.

In just a matter of weeks, Trump and the White House DOGE office have gone full steam ahead to reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy.

About 77,000 federal workers accepted the buyouts Trump offered shortly after he took office for his second term. The administration has laid off scores of workers at the US Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and other key agencies. Several top-level officials who initially pushed back against Musk's efforts have now resigned or retired.

DOGE on Thursday said it had so far saved $55 billion in taxpayer dollars, largely through canceled contracts.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• In a Friday ruling Judge Carl Nichols allowed President Donald Trump to resume putting USAID employees on leave.
• Nichols reversed a prior order halting the plans, saying the plaintiffs "overstated" the need for intervention.
• USAID workers may still prevail as the case progresses, but the agency is left gutted for now.

After being targeted in the DOGE office's efforts to cut federal spending and root out waste, USAID on Friday lost a major court battle, leaving the international aid agency gutted while legal challenges play out.

US District Judge Carl Nichols, in his Friday ruling, allowed President Donald Trump's staff reductions at USAID to proceed, reversing his prior order to halt them pending a request for a temporary injunction brought by the American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents about 800,000 federal workers, and the American Foreign Service Association.

Nichols had previously issued a temporary restraining order in the case, forcing the staff reductions to stop while he considered the plaintiffs' argument that an agency shutdown and the immediate recall of international employees back to the US would cause irreparable harm to the employees and their families, who are stationed abroad in service of the agency's humanitarian missions.

"The Court was concerned by this alleged harm when issuing the TRO: it observed that recalling employees on such short notice could subject them to non-financial injuries—like harms to the continuity of their healthcare and their children's education—that no future lawsuit could redress," Nichols wrote in his Friday ruling. "But again, the government's subsequent submissions have convinced the Court that plaintiffs' initial assertions of harm were overstated."

While the USAID workers may still prevail as the case progresses through court — some legal scholars have argued Trump's cuts to federal agencies are "flatly illegal" — the rescinded temporary restraining order leaves the aid agency with the bulk of its US employees on administrative leave.

"We are disappointed in today's decision and believe the harms faced by USAID workers are real," Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward, the legal services firm representing the USAID workers, said in a statement. "We remain confident that the court will find the administration's efforts to decimate USAID contrary to law. We will continue to pursue all legal options in this case in order to ensure the safety of Americans at home and abroad."

Representatives for the White House and the plaintiffs' legal team did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Lawyers for Charlie Javice on Friday moved for a mistrial in her fraud case.
• Defense argued her right to a fair trial was "compromised" after opening statements were shortened.
• Prosecutors allege Javice defrauded JPMorgan Chase before it bought her student aid startup, Frank.

Lawyers for Charlie Javice on Friday moved for a mistrial in the fraud case against her, arguing her right to a fair trial had been "irreparably compromised."

Her lawyers argued that Javice's right to a fair trial was compromised when the judge unexpectedly ordered her defense counsel's opening statement to be shortened, which they called a violation of her Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.

"Our motion for a mistrial was based on the fundamental principle that Ms. Javice has a constitutional right to a fair trial, which includes adequate time for her counsel to present a full and complete opening statement," a representative for Javice's legal team told Business Insider. "The abrupt and unexplained reduction in our time significantly hindered our ability to provide the jury with a clear and comprehensive presentation of the facts and legal arguments central to this case."

In addition to having the defense's opening statement cut short, Javice's lawyers argue that the court misstated jury instructions regarding the elements of wire fraud, which prejudiced them against the defendant.

The court told the jury that, in order to convict on the wire and bank fraud charges facing Javice, the government has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Javice made intentional false and misleading statements with the intention to deceive, her lawyers say.

However, her lawyers argued in their motion for a mistrial that the court did not adequately inform the jury panel about a key element of the law, which requires the government to prove any false statements amounted to material misrepresentations — a higher legal standard requiring the prosecutors to prove a reasonable person would have been convinced to act due to the false claims and that the false claims were relied on when deciding to enter the deal.

"To guarantee Ms. Javice's Fifth Amendment rights, a mistrial is the only appropriate remedy," the motion from Javice's attorneys says.

The mistrial motion stems from the trial's opening statements, which began Thursday in the fraud case against Javice and her Olivier Amar, who prosecutors say defrauded JPMorgan Chase before it bought the student aid startup.

Javice and Amar are charged with bank fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud after prosecutors say they exaggerated the customer base of their student loan-focused fintech startup in an effort to trick the bank into buying it.

JPMorgan Chase bought Frank in 2021 for $175 million after Javice and Amar said the company had more than 4 million users — a number that prosecutors now argue had been artificially inflated.

Representatives for the US Attorney's Office Southern District of New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• The celebrity video messaging company Cameo is giving workers $10,000 raises to return to the office.
• CEO Steven Galanis said the raise and other perks have boosted productivity and recruitment efforts.
• Galanis told BI that coming to the office requires more of workers, so it "makes sense" to pay more.

The celebrity video messaging company Cameo this week rolled out $10,000 raises for employees returning to work in-office four days a week at its Chicago headquarters.

CEO Steven Galanis told Business Insider the raises and other perks announced this week — such as catered lunch, paid parking, and a free gym membership — have immediately boosted productivity and recruitment efforts.

Chicago-based workers all attended the first four required days in office without absences, they completed more sales outreach together in just a few days than they had in the previous six months, and the move has helped them recruit new employees, he said.

"It's been pretty amazing to watch the reception that we've seen from applicants," Galanis said. "People are coming out of the woodwork that want to work for us now, and ex-employees want to come back, which is awesome."

Cameo, which has gone through three rounds of highly publicized and contentious layoffs since the COVID-19 pandemic, now employs 50 people, with about half living in the Chicago area, Galanis said.

Those who don't live within commuting distance of Chicago aren't eligible for the raise unless they move there, and will not be required to report to the office, he said. If Cameo sets up satellite locations in other cities in the future, Galanis said the option for an in-office work raise would apply to them, as well.

Galanis said he believes the company thrives on in-office brainstorming and participation, but he wanted to try to lure his workers back into the company headquarters organically.

"We really wanted this to be a FOMO-inducing perk versus a punishment," Galanis said."I believe if we're requiring you to come in four days a week, we are literally asking more out of you than if you didn't have to. So, to me, if we're asking more out of you, it totally makes sense that we should pay you more."

The $10,000 raise stands in contrast to other companies' RTO mandates, though Galanis said he has a preference for in-office collaboration shared by many top executives.

JPMorgan Chase's CEO, Jamie Dimon, last week made headlines for a viral, expletive-laden rant against working from home. In it, he said he didn't care how many of the banking giant's employees signed a petition against its five-day return-to-office mandate that takes effect next month.

"Don't waste time on it," Dimon said. "I don't care how many people sign that f—ing petition."

Other major companies, such as Starbucks, have threatened employees with termination if they refuse to comply with RTO orders, Bloomberg first reported in October.

Still, some major return-to-office rollouts have been bumpy. As Business Insider previously reported, Amazon delayed its RTO initiative for some employees because it didn't have enough workspace for returning employees.

Galanis said he understands the vitriol over working from home espoused by some executives — "what Jamie said is something that myself and many other CEOs have felt before or talked about behind closed doors," he said — and he gets the need for some extra large companies to be more strict in their approach to returning to the office. That just wasn't for him, he said.

"I can't judge what's the right thing for another company's culture," Galanis said. "But I know the way our company is, and I know how much we cherish our employees and so this, for us, was the right approach."

• George Youmans is a self-described amateur biohacker and the cofounder of Hiyo, a nonalcoholic tonic.
• Constellation Brands, the largest beer import company in the US, just acquired a minority stake in Hiyo.
• The nonalcoholic market is expanding, but customers want to feel different when they drink, Youmans said.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with George Youmans, cofounder of the social tonic Hiyo, a non-alcoholic beverage startup that recently partnered with Constellation Brands. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I cut my teeth out of college at Red Bull in their entertainment and music marketing division — it was awesome, but I had a bit of cognitive dissonance with the product itself.

I consider myself an amateur biohacker, so I'm very conscious about what I put in my body. Drinking Red Bulls all the time wasn't exactly what I wanted to be putting my time and effort into. I learned a lot working there, but ultimately, you want to be able to really believe in the brand that you're building, so there was a bit of a misalignment.

The idea for Hiyo came when one of my co-founders, Evan, and I were thinking through a bunch of different ideas around starting a company — he was getting his MBA at UCLA, and for the final project for his thesis, he had to start a business. During that period back in April 2019, we both had family members hospitalized with some alcohol-related issues.

It was a weird coincidence and, frankly, a pretty traumatic experience, but it caused us to cut back on our drinking out of solidarity with those family members. And as we did, we saw a pretty profound need for a product like Hiyo in our lives and in the lives of those we loved. The options were boring soda water and lime or sugary, syrupy mocktails — and those were not really leading to a healthier lifestyle.

A growing market for non-alcoholic drinks

It was obvious that there was a surging demand for high-end non-alcoholic drinks that didn't feel like a sacrifice, so we wanted to try to create an alternative to alcohol that you could be proud to hold. We wanted the flavor profiles to be complex and refreshing enough to deserve their place at that table when you usually have cocktails or full-bodied wines.

We also wanted a nutritional facts panel that felt guiltless, with all organic ingredients. Finally, it had to be functional. I think the main reason people drink is that they want to feel something; they want stress relief, to feel relaxed and social. So we tried to tap into those feelings by using adaptogens and nootropics.

We worked for a very long time to finalize that perfect stack of ingredients that elicited that feeling. For me, drinking Hiyo almost feels a little bit like a runner's high. I don't know exactly how to describe what I feel, but I know that I feel good, and it's pleasant, so we called it the "float." I think the functionality of the drink is such a critical piece of this because the world's f—ing stressful, and people need a way to unwind. We wanted to be able to provide a healthy version of that thing that we all need at the end of the week or the end of a long day.

A deal with Constellation Brands

We launched in May 2021. We grew 3 times in retail last year and are looking to double this year — and we've just announced a new deal with Constellation Brands.

I think what attracted Constellation to Hiyo is they're recognizing the shifting landscape of consumer behavior, with people drinking alcohol less often, and they're focused on really owning that celebration and that social occasion space.

People are looking to drink less, whether they're completely sober or they're moderating. About 87% of our customers are people who are just drinking less, not completely sober people, and I think Constellation saw us as one of — if not the — fastest-growing brands in our space.

Typically, when strategic investors come in at this stage, they're looking to potentially have a path toward an acquisition. Part of their investment is to help support that brand to accelerate its growth, and, in our case, Constellation has come out and said they want 25% of their portfolio to be non-alcoholic by around 2030. So we know they have that intentionality, and a big way they're going to do that is through the ventures group of the Constellation Brands team of finding great, younger, non-alcoholic brands — I'm just so proud Hiyo is one of them.

• Microsoft unveiled Majorana 1, a quantum chip the company says is powered by a new state of matter.
• The new chip allows for more stable, scalable, and simplified quantum computing, the company says.
• A quantum expert told BI the development was "just as revolutionary as the silicon transistor."

Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled Majorana 1, a quantum chip the company says is powered by a new state of matter.

CEO Satya Nadella described it as a "breakthrough" in the advancement of quantum computing.

"Most of us grew up learning there are three main types of matter that matter: solid, liquid, and gas. Today, that changed," Nadella said in a post on X. "After a nearly 20 year pursuit, we've created an entirely new state of matter, unlocked by a new class of materials, topoconductors, that enable a fundamental leap in computing. It powers Majorana 1, the first quantum processing unit built on a topological core. We believe this breakthrough will allow us to create a truly meaningful quantum computer not in decades, as some have predicted, but in years."

Quantum computing is a rapidly evolving field of technology that combines the disciplines of computer science, math, and quantum mechanics to solve more complex calculations more quickly than is possible through classical computing. The foundation of quantum computing relies on units of information called qubits, rather than the binary bits used in classical computing.

Qubits exist in multiple states at once, like a spinning coin appearing to show both heads and tails simultaneously. They behave differently when observed and require specific conditions such as low light or extremely cold environments to replicate results reliably and without errors, which has made advancement in the field slow going.

But when they behave predictably at a large enough scale, qubits enable quantum computers to quickly calculate equations with multiple solutions and perform advanced computations that would be impossible for classical computers.

Researchers in the field agree that computations solvable through quantum computing could help discover new drugs, promote sustainable food growth in harsh climates, and develop new chemical compounds that break down plastics or break our current encryption methods, among other outcomes.

Nadella has said he believes quantum will be a global game changer when used in conjunction with advancements in artificial intelligence.

In an appearance on the "Dwarkesh Podcast," Nadella said quantum computing would be most useful for exploring how various compounds work in different states, like advancements in chemical physics and biology, rather than the data-heavy processing that AI is best at.

"The way I think of it is, if you have AI plus quantum, maybe you'll use quantum to generate synthetic data that then gets used by AI to train better models that know how to model something like chemistry or physics or what have you," Nadella said in the podcast. "These two things will get used together."

Microsoft said in a press release that its topological superconductor is a new material that isn't solid, liquid, or gas, which the company fabricated atom by atom. Where many familiar electronic devices rely on the raw material silicon in their semiconductors, Microsoft said in peer-reviewed findings released in Nature that its topological superconductor was a path forward for quantum computing to produce more stable qubits.

Troy Nelson, the chief technology officer at Lastwall, a cybersecurity provider of quantum resilient technology, told Business Insider that, since the behavior of quantum systems is often hard to prove because of the unstable nature of qubits, he'd like to see more real-world testing to confirm Microsoft's findings. He said, however, that he was "more on the optimistic side of cautiously optimistic" about the company's announcement.

"What they've done is they've created a new foundation that we can build off of," Nelson said. "Now we need to solve the production problems like the economies of scale and bringing costs down. But I see what they produced here as a new road map."

Microsoft's new topological architecture was used to develop its Majorana 1 processor, offering what the company called in its press release "a clear path to fit a million qubits on a single chip that can fit in the palm of one's hand."

"This is a needed threshold for quantum computers to deliver transformative, real-world solutions — such as breaking down microplastics into harmless byproducts or inventing self-healing materials for construction, manufacturing or healthcare," Microsoft's press release reads. "All the world's current computers operating together can't do what a one-million-qubit quantum computer will be able to do."

Nelson said Microsoft's topological breakthrough, if it can be replicated by other researchers in the field, would be a turning point that shortens the timeline for developing fully functional quantum computers to just years.

"If we really can print topoconductor to chips the size of your hand, that's just as revolutionary as the silicon transistor," Nelson said.

Microsoft's stock rose 1.25% on Wednesday following the announcement of its new quantum chip.

While Microsoft's Majorana 1 chip doesn't mean commercially useful quantum computing is right around the corner, it's the latest in a series of significant advancements in the field that leads some researchers to believe more widespread, commercial adoption will come sooner than previously expected.

In December, Google unveiled Willow, its new quantum chip, which the company says can perform a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes — a task that would take the current fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years to complete; a timeframe that exceeds the age of the universe.

But not everyone is convinced. Quantum stocks tumbled in January after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang suggested we were still 20 years away from the technology being "very useful."

• Donald Trump tapped Andrew Ferguson to replace Lina Khan as chair of the Federal Trade Commission.
• Ferguson has vowed to take on Big Tech while paring back the FTC's recent focus on antitrust.
• Here's what we know about Ferguson and his priorities so far.

Andrew Ferguson is in as Chair of the Federal Trade Commission.

As the new leader of the government's key consumer protection agency, he'll oversee cases involving unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent business practices — and have a major role in the future of Big Tech.

The commissioner, who once clerked for Clarence Thomas, was nominated to the commission by Democratic President Joe Biden in 2023. The staunch Republican has vowed to uphold President Donald Trump's agenda as Chair, saying in a December statement that, under Trump's leadership, "American businesses will become stronger and more competitive, and will better serve workers and consumers, than ever before."

"At the FTC, we will end Big Tech's vendetta against competition and free speech," Ferguson said in his statement, thanking Trump. "We will make sure that America is the world's technological leader and the best place for innovators to bring new ideas to life."

Representatives for FTC declined to comment when reached by Business Insider. Here's what we know about Ferguson and his priorities as he leads the commission.

FTC moves under Ferguson

While the FTC's agenda under Trump is just getting underway, Alden Abbott, a former general counsel of the Federal Trade Commission who is familiar with Ferguson's thinking, told Business Insider he expects the commission under Ferguson's leadership to focus on traditional enforcement approaches at the agency and, in most cases, stop pursuing former chair Lina Khan's expansive rulemaking arguments about consumer harm, which were seen by some as pushing the limits of established antitrust legal precedent and drew ire from some conservatives.

"He's smart," Abbott said. "I think he views himself as a conservative lawyer who believes in a strong executive reading in the text of a statute, textualism, and separation of powers. He fits the mold of the elite Federalist Society type of lawyer. So I think you're going to get a pretty aggressive FTC on things like antitrust — consumer protection, maybe, but I think you'll you'll see less rulemaking."

Since Trump took office, the FTC under Ferguson has moved to block Tempur Sealy's proposed $4 billion acquisition of Mattress Firm, proposed a $4.9 million fine against a payment processing company, accusing it of deceptive business practices, and filed a lawsuit against the three largest prescription drug benefit managers for "engaging in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices that have artificially inflated the list price of insulin drugs," according to case proceedings.

Under his tenure as chair, Ferguson will oversee the illegal monopolization claims against four major US tech companies — Google, Apple, Amazon, and Meta — brought by the FTC and the Department of Justice.

Abbott said he expects Ferguson to continue pursuing these cases, though he doesn't anticipate the FTC under his leadership will seek major breakups of the big firms as potential remedies. Instead, Abbott said, he expects Ferguson to seek policy or contract changes to remedy antitrust concerns.

"One unknown is that Ferguson has said he's concerned about the politicization of these platforms and concerned about the government coercing platforms or working with platforms to engage in political censorship; stuff like that," Abbott said. "Those would be rather novel cases under existing antitrust laws. And I don't know how he'd want to pursue those, but I do think he's going to — he said he wants to be a vigorous enforcer."

On Thursday, Ferguson announced in a post on X that he was opening an inquiry into Big Tech "censorship," launching a public tipline for affected users to report instances where they believed themselves to be victimized by the platforms.

"Censorship by technology platforms is not just un-American, it is potentially illegal," reads an FTC press release regarding the public inquiry. "Tech firms can employ confusing or unpredictable internal procedures that cut users off, sometimes with no ability" to "appeal the decision. Such actions taken by tech platforms may harm consumers, affect competition, may have resulted from a lack of competition, or may have been the product of anti-competitive conduct."

It remains unclear what enforcement measures the FTC might employ to resolve instances of consumer harm caused by content moderation on Big Tech platforms.

Keen alignment with the Trump administration

Since Trump announced Ferguson's appointment as chair of the FTC, Ferguson has made clear his willingness to advance the Trump administration's priorities.

In posts on X, Ferguson praised Trump's nomination of Mark Meador to fill an empty commissioner seat at the FTC, and highlighted his readiness to "implement President Trump's agenda" at the agency.

Do you work for the FTC? Contact the reporter with tips at [email protected]m

Shortly after Trump's inauguration, Ferguson announced that the FTC, under his leadership, would enthusiastically comply with Trump's order to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in government offices.

"DEI is a scourge on our institutions," Ferguson said in a post on X in late January. "President Trump promised the American people that he would end it. He has done so in three amazing executive orders. Under my leadership, the FTC is doing its part to end the DEI plague. We are done with DEI at the FTC. No DEI office, no DEI influence on hiring, no DEI programming. It is over."

Ferguson led the FTC in closing the commission's DEI office, placing all employees within that office on administrative leave, and removing materials promising DEI on the commission's website.

He also ordered a review of all FTC contracts, an internal audit of the commission's office, and a review of previous commission orders "to ensure that the Biden Administration's DEI dictates did not make their way into formal Commission decisions," an FTC press release related to the decision read.

Ferguson's alignment with Trump has already ruffled the feathers of the democrat appointee on the commission. Commissioner Alvaro M. Bedoya, another Biden nominee, dissented from Ferguson's anti-DEI initiative with a statement that criticized Ferguson's first official move as chair, reading: "Chairman Ferguson could have done any number of things to actually lower the cost of living and create opportunities for American businesses and workers. He did none of them. Instead, he cancelled 'DEI.'"

Former Supreme Court clerk turned solicitor general

According to his FTC biography, the Virginia native earned his undergraduate degree and law degrees from the University of Virginia, one of the top 10 law schools in the country.

After law school, Ferguson served as a clerk for Judge Karen L. Henderson on the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and, from 2016 to 2017, for US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He also practiced antitrust law at several prominent Washington D.C. law firms, where he represented private clients in litigation, before pivoting to more prominent roles in government.

Ferguson served as chief counsel to Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky from 2019 to 2021, before being selected in 2022 to serve as a solicitor general of Virginia. There, he oversaw appellate litigation, represented the southern state before the Supreme Court, and defended Virginia's laws from constitutional challenges.

After his 2023 nomination to the FTC by the Biden administration — as part of Biden's initiative to include bipartisan nominations to key offices — Ferguson was unanimously confirmed to serve as one of the agency's five commissioners. He took office in March 2024, with a six-year term scheduled to end in September 2030.

Thursday, February 20, 2025: This story has been updated to include details on Ferguson's announcement that the FTC would be opening an inquiry into Big Tech "censorship."

• Uber filed suit against its food delivery rival DoorDash on Friday, seeking unspecified damages.
• Uber says DoorDash has cost Uber millions of dollars in revenue through anti-competitive practices.
• A DoorDash spokesperson told Business Insider that Uber's claims are meritless.

Uber Technologies, Inc. on Friday filed suit against its food delivery rival, DoorDash, Inc., accusing DoorDash of anti-competitive business practices that Uber says inflate costs for both restaurants and customers.

In the complaint, Uber alleges that DoorDash, the largest provider of restaurant delivery services in the United States, has "devised and is engaged in an unlawful scheme to stifle competition with Uber Eats," making it difficult and expensive for restaurants to partner with more than one delivery service and allowing the delivery giant to charge customers higher fees for "lower-quality service."

"Restaurants simply cannot afford to stand up to DoorDash, and find themselves powerless to choose the service or services that are best for their businesses in the market for first-party delivery," the complaint, reviewed by Business Insider, reads. "Uber's restaurant-customers have reported feeling like they have a 'gun to their head,' that DoorDash is a 'monopolist,' and that they are being bullied by DoorDash. But most restaurants have no meaningful option to resist DoorDash, given the power it wields through the DoorDash App in Third-Party Delivery."

The complaint says DoorDash's alleged anti-competitive behavior has cost Uber millions in terminated and potential revenue streams. The suit seeks unspecified damages and aims to force DoorDash to change its business practices.

"Uber's case has no merit," a DoorDash spokesperson told Business Insider. "Their claims are unfounded and based on their inability to offer merchants, consumers, or couriers a quality alternative."

As of November, data firm Earnest Analytics reports that DoorDash controls 62.7% of the delivery market nationally, followed by UberEats, which holds 25%, and Grubhub with 6.2%. A 2024 report of mystery shopper data from Intouch Insight, which collected experiences from 300 delivery orders from the three main delivery platforms, found DoorDash leads in customer satisfaction, with the app offering more promotions, delivering to the right location, and delivering the correct food more often than its other major competitors.

The report found that DoorDash also dramatically outperformed its competitors in delivery time, with an average wait of 26 minutes and 24 seconds. Grubhub's average delivery time was 35 minutes and 49 seconds, while Uber Eats was 38 minutes and 4 seconds, per Intouch Insight.

While demand for third-party delivery services remains high — DoorDash reported an 18% rise in orders year over year in its third quarter of 2024, with revenue growing 25% to $2.7 billion, BI previously reported —  criticism over the fees charged by the apps isn't new. Customers may be charged as much as twice the cost of their meal for ordering using a delivery app compared to menu prices, and some restaurant owners find the apps' fees cut into their margins too much to be sustainable, BI previously reported.

"We've increasingly heard complaints from restaurants that DoorDash's tactics are limiting that freedom and punishing them for seeking better options," Sarfraz Maredia, head of the Americas for delivery at Uber, said in a statement to Business Insider. "We hope this filing puts an end to those unfair practices so that restaurants can choose what's best for them without fear of penalty or retribution."

• OpenAI's board of directors on Friday unanimously rejected Elon Musk's bid to buy the company.
• A Musk-led investor group on Monday submitted an unprompted $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI.
• Bret Taylor, chair of OpenAI's board, called it "Musk's latest attempt to disrupt his competition."

OpenAI's board of directors on Friday flatly refused Elon Musk's unprompted bid to buy the company.

"OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk's latest attempt to disrupt his competition. Any potential reorganization of OpenAI will strengthen our nonprofit and its mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity," Bret Taylor, chair of OpenAI's board, said in a Friday statement posted on X.

A Musk-led investor group on Monday submitted an unprompted $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI. The bid immediately garnered staunch refusals from CEO Sam Altman, who said in several public interviews at an AI summit in Paris that the company — and its mission to ensure artificial intelligence benefits humanity — is not for sale.

"There's been like versions of Elon trying to, you know, somehow take control of OpenAI for a long time, so, it's like, okay, here's this week's episode," Altman told Axios.

In a statement to Business Insider, Marc Toberoff, an attorney for the investor group, said OpenAI's rejection of the bid "comes as no surprise, given that Altman and Board chair, Taylor, already rejected Musk's $97 billion bid while stating they had not yet received it."

"But we are surprised to see the Board, which has strict fiduciary duties to carefully consider the bid in good faith on behalf of the charity, use the same kind of deflective double-talk Altman used in testifying to the Senate," Toberoff' said. "Of course they're putting the charity's assets (control of the for-profit enterprise) up for sale. That's what their 'reorganization' is all about. They're just selling it to themselves at a fraction of what Musk has offered, enriching Board members, Altman, Brockman, and others rather than the charity in a classic self-dealing transaction. Will someone please explain how that benefits 'all of humanity'?"

Musk and Altman cofounded OpenAI together years ago, but their relationship soured after Musk departed the company in 2018 and founded his own AI venture, xAI. The tech titans have since repeatedly traded public barbs over their conflicting views about the development of artificial intelligence.

Musk filed suit against OpenAI and its executives in February 2024, alleging that the company's direction in recent years had violated its founding principles. He later withdrew the complaint. In a separate August suit, Musk alleged he was "manipulated" into cofounding the company.

In a Monday statement about his proposal to buy OpenAI, Musk said, "At x.AI, we live by the values I was promised OpenAI would follow. We've made Grok open-source, and we respect the rights of content creators. It's time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. We will make sure that happens."

Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• The White House announced 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports.
• The US is the world's top steel importer, sourcing mainly from Canada, Mexico, and Brazil.
• Higher tariffs may increase US inflation, affecting industries reliant on these metals.

President Donald Trump on Monday ordered 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, escalating his trade moves against some of the nation's closest allies.

Trump told reporters on Monday that he would announce "reciprocal tariffs," likely on Tuesday or Wednesday, on countries that have placed tariffs on US goods.

"If they are charging us 130% and we're charging them nothing, it's not going to stay that way," Trump said.

Steel and aluminum were among the first products that Trump targeted during his first term. He imposed tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum but later granted some duty-free exemptions for trade partners, including Canada, Mexico, and Brazil.

This time, Trump said he is giving "great consideration" to an exemption for Australia — a country with which the US has a trade surplus.

"We have a surplus with Australia. One of the few. And the reason is they buy a lot of airplanes. They're rather far away and they need lots of airplanes," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.

Since companies tend to pass the higher price of tariffs on to their customers, the move could boost prices of construction, cars, and travel.

The US is the world's top importer of steel, which is used in a wide range of industries, from construction to automobile manufacturing.

Canada, Mexico, and Brazil were the US' largest steel and iron suppliers last year by dollar value, Census Bureau data showed.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said in a Tuesday statement that tariffs hurt businesses and consumers.

"I deeply regret the US decision to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports," she said. "Unjustified tariffs on the EU will not go unanswered — they will trigger firm and proportionate countermeasures."

Canada and Mexico were also among the top countries for aluminum and bauxite imports. The United Arab Emirates ranked No. 2, based on 2024 Census Bureau data by dollar value. Aluminum is used for aircraft construction, consumer products like cans, and construction, among other industries.

Shortly after taking office, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on most goods from Canada and Mexico. He later announced that those tariffs would be delayed 30 days after he reached a deal with both countries to strengthen border security.

Trump also placed a 10% tariff on imports from China, and China quickly announced retaliatory tariffs on coal, crude oil, agricultural machinery, and some vehicles. The tariffs announced Monday come in addition to the 10% tariffs on other goods, Bloomberg reported.

Charles Johnson, the president of the US Aluminum Association, said in a February 1 statement: "To ensure that American aluminum wins the future, President Trump should exempt the aluminum metal supply needed for American manufacturers, while continuing to take every possible action at the US border against unfairly traded Chinese aluminum."

Steel inflation may damp demand

There are fears that higher US tariffs on imports from key trade partners could drive up inflation in the US — at least in the short term.

"Constructing and ramping up new smelters/mills can take three or more years," Morgan Stanley analysts Carlos De Alba and Justin Ferrer said in a January 29 report. "Hence, any import tariffs applied to metals or mined products are likely to result in higher domestic prices for local buyers of these materials."

However, high steel prices could weigh on demand that has already been sluggish from the second half of 2024 due to US election uncertainty and seasonality, wrote analysts from the research firm CreditSights in a Tuesday note.

Meanwhile, it's unclear how Pittsburgh-based aluminum company Alcoa would restart capacity after scaling back in the US for years, they wrote.

But Trump's tariffs are politically strategic, the analysts wrote. The levies also curb transshipment through Canada and Mexico.

"The steel industry seems to becoming quasi-government-owned," wrote analysts from research firm CreditSights in a Tuesday note, citing the tariffs and the US blocking Nippon Steel from acquiring US Steel.

• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's HQ was shut down on Sunday.
• Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency, wants to eliminate the agency.
• The first director of CFPB told BI that Musk's calls to dismantle the bureau are "totally unethical."

The first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned against eliminating the independent watchdog agency, telling Business Insider that it would strip oversight of financial firms and harm US consumers.

"We'd be back to the wild, wild west for financial services that affect families all over the country in terms of what their terms would be on their credit cards, on their mortgages, and other products. There would be no oversight of that," Richard Cordray, who first led the CFBP when it was established in 2011 after the Great Recession to help prevent another financial crisis, told BI.

"Companies could act in their own interests at the expense of consumers," he added. "It would be as though we were saying to a neighborhood, 'Go ahead and enforce your laws. We will withdraw the police. We will not have any kind of enforcement of the law.'"

On Sunday, the CFPB told its staff that its DC headquarters would be closed this week and that they should work remotely, according to an email from the agency's COO, Adam Martinez, that was seen by BI.

On Monday, the CFPB's new acting director, Russell Vought, told employees in an email seen by BI to "stand down from performing any work task."

The CFPB in flux

The CFPB has had a shake-up in leadership since Trump took office.

While Martinez has served as the bureau's associate director and chief operating officer since February 2023, on February 1, Trump fired Rohit Chopra, the former CFPB director under President Joe Biden. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took on the role of acting director of the agency until Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, took over the role on February 7.

Vought, CFBP's new acting director, was an author of the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership, a conservative road map for the first 180 days of the Trump administration that outlines policy suggestions ranging from dismantling the Department of Homeland Security to scaling back USAID operations — some of which have already been implemented by the Trump White House.

Project 2025's playbook calls for abolishing the CFPB, calling it an unconstitutional, "highly politicized, damaging, and utterly unaccountable federal agency," instead recommending the bureau's consumer protection duties be rolled up under the Federal Trade Commission.

While the FTC has a Bureau of Consumer Protection, which has some overlap with the duties of the CFPB, the CFPB is the only federal bureau completely dedicated to protecting consumers from anticompetitive, deceptive, or unfair business practices in the financial services industry.

In a Saturday post on X, Vought wrote that the "spigot" for the agency's funding "is now being turned off."

Elon Musk calls for the end of CFPB

Vought's move comes after Elon Musk, the head of DOGE, repeatedly called to eliminate the agency as part of his broader effort to slash federal spending. "RIP CFPB," he said on X.

The CFPB's oversight of the financial industry has included a lawsuit filed against Capital One over allegations that it illegally charged customers over $2 billion in interest, the return of money to student-loan borrowers from private lender Navient, and rules to cap overdraft fees and remove medical debt from credit reports.

Cordray said Musk's targeting of CFPB could be a conflict of interest, considering X has plans to provide financial services on the platform.

Musk has shared his ambitions to turn his social media company into an "everything app," including a digital wallet and payment system. On January 28, X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced a partnership with Visa that will allow peer-to-peer money transfers with what the company calls XMoney, set to debut later this year.

"It's a direct conflict of interest and totally unethical for him to be making judgments about how the CFPB should exist that are not legislated by Congress and that might serve his own financial interests at the expense of the public across the country," Corday said.

Representatives for the White House, Musk, and the CFPB did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Congress established the CFPB under the Dodd-Frank Act and gave it the regulatory authority to enforce and expand on existing laws, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Act, meant to protect consumers and guide financial firms.

The agency is funded by the Federal Reserve instead of Congress' appropriations process, which has led to criticism from many lawmakers who say Congress should oversee the CFPB's funding.

"The CFPB was supposed to be bipartisan — in a way nonpartisan and actually independent of politics — and meant to implement good policies to protect American consumers," Antoinette Schoar, a finance professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, told BI. Schoar was a CFPB's inaugural advisory board member, lending her expertise in consumer finance to help develop some of the bureau's policies.

Musk vaguely acknowledged the CFPB's contributions on Thursday, saying that "they did above zero good things, but still need to go."

Escalating attacks on the bureau

The X owner's desire to shut down CFPB also reflects President Donald Trump's opposition to the consumer watchdog agency. During his first term, Trump took steps to reduce the CFPB's influence and appointed Mick Mulvaney as its acting director.

Trump "spent four years in the Oval Office and obviously the CFPB shifted direction during that time pretty dramatically, was much more timid, and not aggressive on behalf of consumers," Cordray said. "But they did enforce the law."

Under the new Trump administration, things are different: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently ordered the CFPB to halt most of its work and pause all public communications, an email obtained by Business Insider showed.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents employees in the CFPB, on Sunday filed suit against Vought, urging a judge to block DOGE officials from accessing employee information and to block Vought's directives to "cease all supervision and examination activity" and "cease all stakeholder engagement."

Cordray said that Musk has no authority to "delete" the consumer watchdog agency, saying that "Congress is the lawmaking authority in the country" and that Musk "is not the Congress."

Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts said in a post on X on Saturday that Musk's role was a "blatant conflict of interest."

"Elon wants the CFPB gone so tech billionaires can profit from apps, like X, that offer bank-like services but don't follow financial laws that keep people's money safe," the senator wrote. "Musk wants to use the government to put more in his pockets."

The White House recently designated Musk as an unpaid "special government employee," which means the billionaire isn't subject to the standard ethics and conflict-of-interest rules that official government employees typically encounter.

One of the laws introduced as part of the Ethics Reform Act of 1989 stipulates that federal workers, including an SGE, are prohibited from making government decisions that impact their financial interests.

However, the law has an exception that says the official appointing the SGE can grant a waiver if the worker's services are deemed in the public interest and outweigh the potential conflict.

• Tom Brady made his first appearance as a broadcaster at Super Bowl LIX on Sunday.
• Commentating for Fox Sports, Brady sported a flashy $740,000 Jacob & Co. watch for the occasion.
• The Caviar Tourbillon timepiece features 48.92 carats of sapphires and 1.32 carats of diamonds.

Tom Brady made his first appearance as a broadcaster at Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, commentating for Fox Sports while sporting an eye-popping gold watch.

The glittering timepiece quickly caught viewers' attention, prompting widespread speculation online about its value.

A spokesperson for Jacob & Co. confirmed to Business Insider that Brady was sporting the luxury watchmaker's Caviar Tourbillon model in its Yellow Sapphires design. With a price tag of $740,000, the rose gold timepiece is entirely covered in gems, featuring 48.92 carats worth of yellow sapphires and 1.32 carats of white diamonds arranged to glisten like pearls of caviar.

"Open a large tin of caviar," the watchmaker's website reads. "The glistening grains are packed tight together. So tight they're not round anymore, but closer to a square. The flat surface is perfectly smooth, saturated with black gems. This universal symbol of luxury is the effect Jacob & Co. recreated with the Caviar Tourbillon."

In addition to being studded with gems from the inside out, the watch has an alligator leather strap, is water resistant to 30 meters, and has a 42-hour power reserve. Other Caviar Tourbillion models have been sported by celebrities like Jay-Z and soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, the watchmaker and GQ report.

Brady, the former quarterback for the New England Patriots, is a well-known watch collector. In December, he auctioned off 21 watches from his collection for $4.6 million, including the legendary Rolex Daytona Paul Newman "John Player Special," which sold for $1.1 million on its own, Business Insider reported.

While the former star quarterback is no longer raking in millions from football contracts since retiring in 2023 — with career earnings valued at about $300 million, per Sports Illustrated — he'll be making more money as a sports broadcast personality with Fox. The New York Times reported that Brady signed a $375 million, 10-year contract with the network, not including the value of stock options that were part of the deal.

Representatives for Brady did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

• A nearly 24-hour outage disrupted Sony's PlayStation Network starting on Friday.
• The outage prevented gamers from playing or purchasing games online, disrupting the digital economy.
• PlayStation returned online, but not before Sony's stock took a 2% dip in after-hours trading.

Sony's PlayStation Network went down on Friday, starting a daylong outage that outraged gamers, disrupted the digital economy surrounding the system, and knocked Sony's stock.

"PSN has been restored. You should be able to access online features without any problems now," a PlayStation account posted on X late Saturday afternoon. "Sorry for the inconvenience!"

Representatives for PlayStation did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

At the time of publication, the PlayStation's server status page indicates service has been restored to the network — about 24 hours after the initial disruption started.

Some users were still reporting issues on social media when PlayStation's server status showed the problems had resolved, though reports of disruption on sites like DownDetector had largely subsided. While the exact economic impact of the outage remains unclear, the PlayStation Network has an estimated 116 million monthly users, according to the company's estimates from September 30, 2024.

Users were prevented from playing and purchasing games online for a full day, disrupting the digital economy that has grown around the top-selling gaming system in the US.

Sony's stock dipped in after-hours trading as news of the outage circulated, falling nearly 2% at publication time.

The outage drew ire from diehard gamers, who chronicled their disappointment in posts on Reddit and X, as well as snark from corporate entities responding to the news.

"Well, I'm tired of waiting. Off to buy a STEAM deck. Guess my Playstation is no longer my main system," one Reddit user wrote.

Krispy Kreme posted on X an offer to displaced gamers for a free glazed doughnut on Friday evening, writing: "Calling all gamers: this play station still works."

"Bet y'all want physical copies now," GameStop's official account posted as a joke after the outage had dragged on over 14 hours.

• A federal judge blocked Trump's attempt to dismantle the US Agency for International Development.
• The Friday ruling followed a lawsuit by government employee unions against USAID cuts.
• USAID spent $32.5 billion in 2024 on global humanitarian aid.

A federal judge has partially blocked the Trump administration's attempt to dismantle the US Agency for International Development.

Judge Carl Nichols said in a Friday order he would temporarily block the Trump administration from placing 2,200 USAID employees on paid leave until midnight on February 14.

"Many USAID personnel work in 'high-risk environments where access to security resources is critical.' No future lawsuit could undo the physical harm that might result if USAID employees are not informed of imminent security threats occurring in the countries to which they have relocated in the course of their service to the United States," Nichols wrote in his order, preventing the layoffs from taking place.

"The government argued at the TRO hearing that placing employees on paid administrative leave is a garden-variety personnel action unworthy of court intervention. But administrative leave in Syria is not the same as administrative leave in Bethesda: simply being paid cannot change that fact," the judge's order added.

The judge's order partially grants a temporary restraining order requested by two labor groups representing federal workers in a lawsuit against the Trump administration filed Thursday. In their initial request, the labor groups asked the judge to block the Trump administration from placing any additional USAID workers on leave or from firing any additional workers, court records showed.

They also asked the administration be blocked from "taking further actions to shut down USAID's operations in a manner not authorized by Congress until further order of this Court." Nichols' order on Friday did not grant the labor groups' request to block a funding freeze implemented by the Trump administration, allowing the freeze to go into effect.

Prior to the judge's order, many USAID workers were set to be placed on leave Friday just before midnight.

The judge's ruling comes one day after the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association filed a lawsuit against the administration's cuts to USAID.

"These actions have generated a global humanitarian crisis by abruptly halting the crucial work of USAID employees, grantees, and contractors. They have cost thousands of American jobs. And they have imperiled US national security interests," their lawyers wrote.

The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, named President Donald Trump, State Secretary Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and USAID as defendants.

"Not a single one of defendants' actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization. And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency," the lawsuit argued.

The humanitarian aid agency has been under fire since Trump took office. Elon Musk said in an X post on Monday that he "spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper."

On Tuesday, USAID said nearly all staff would be placed on administrative leave starting on February 7 at midnight. The announcement came just a day after the agency shut down its headquarters on Monday and told staff to work remotely.

"With regards to the USAID stuff, I went over it in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down," Musk said of a conversation he had with President Donald Trump during an X Spaces conversation on Monday.

Established in 1961 by then-President John F. Kennedy, USAID oversees the US's aid programs worldwide.

The agency spent nearly $32.5 billion in fiscal year 2024, channeling aid to countries like Ukraine, Jordan, and Ethiopia. The US is the world's largest provider of humanitarian aid.

The turmoil surrounding USAID occurs amid a wider upending of the federal bureaucracy during Trump's second term, with the federal judiciary increasingly stepping in.

Last month, the Trump administration gave federal employees from January 28 to February 6 to accept a buyout offer and resign from their jobs, but a judge extended the deadline to Monday.

The Trump administration's freeze on federal grants and loans was announced on January 28 and rolled by within days, with a federal judge issuing a restraining order on January 31.

A federal judge also issued an injunction against Trump's executive orders on ending birthright citizenship, calling them "flatly unconstitutional."

A spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal workforce, said on Thursday that over 40,000 employees have accepted the offer. The federal government employs more than 2 million people.

• The Hunt family is one of the wealthiest families in America, thanks to early investments in oil.
• They're widely known as the owners of the Kansas City Chiefs.
• Lamar Hunt founded the team in 1959; his son, Clark Hunt, is now its chairman and CEO.

The Kansas City Chiefs are used to making headlines. From their star quarterback Patrick Mahomes and controversial kicker Harrison Butker to their connections to Taylor Swift and, of course, their upcoming fifth Super Bowl appearance in the last seven seasons, it's hard to imagine a time when people weren't talking about the Chiefs.

That's good news for the Hunt family, who've owned the team since the beginning.

The Chiefs were founded by Lamar Hunt Sr. in 1959 as the Dallas Texans, but the team has been in Kansas City since 1963. Now, team ownership is divided between his children, Clark Hunt, Sharron Hunt Munson, Daniel Hunt, and Lamar Hunt Jr. with principal decision making falling to Clark, who's been the team's CEO since 2010.

Ahead of Sunday's big game, Clark Hunt told "The Rich Eisen Show" that his father, who died in 2006, "would be absolutely thrilled" about the prospect of a Chiefs Super Bowl three-peat, adding, "He would be beyond words."

But the Hunt family's dynasty extends much further than football. Their real story actually begins with American oil tycoon H.L. Hunt.

Here's everything you need to know about the Clark family, who Forbes estimated in 2024 were worth $24.8 billion.

Haroldson Lafayette Hunt made his fortune in the oil industry.

In 1964, The New York Times reported that almost 30 years after H.L. Hunt founded the Hunt Oil Company, his family had an estimated fortune of $700 million (around $7 billion in today's money).

At the time of the report, the company was producing oil and natural gas in 12 states, including Texas, Louisiana, and North Dakota.

With his great success in the oil business, H.L. Hunt reportedly invested profits in other industries, such as publishing, cosmetics, and even pecan farming.

Hunt funded Facts Forum News, his foundation for producing conservative, anti-Communist radio and television programs, from 1951 to 1963, per the University of Houston.

Hunt died in 1974 with an estimated net worth between $2 billion and $3 billion.

His fortune was put into trusts for each of his 15 children, whom he had with three different women.

One of his sons, Ray Lee Hunt, is the wealthiest of all 15 siblings.

Forbes reported that Ray Lee Hunt has a net worth of $6.9 billion, as of February 2025. He is chairman emeritus of Hunt Consolidated, Inc., which includes Hunt Oil Company, Hunt Energy, and Hunt Realty Investments.

Ray's sister, Caroline Rose Hunt, founded Rosewood Hotels & Resorts in 1979 after her father left her The Rosewood Corporation.

Rosewood Hotels & Resorts was sold to New World Hospitality (now known as Rosewood Hotel Group) in 2011 for $229.5 million, per AP News and PR Newswire.

Caroline Rose Hunt died in 2018 at age 95.

Their brother, William Herbert Hunt, led their oil and gas company Petro-Hunt.

Before his death in April 2024, William Herbert Hunt served as an advisor to management at Petro-Hunt. Per the company website, his family continues to own and operate Petro-Hunt, which, in addition to its focus on oil and gas, also purchases minerals and royalties, invests in real estate, and also partially owns an oil refinery.

Another brother, Lamar Hunt, cofounded the American Football League.

Lamar Hunt founded the American Football League (AFL) in 1959 to rival the National Football League (NFL) after being refused access to buying a franchise. Since the AFL and NFL officially merged in 1970, the Lamar Hunt Trophy has been awarded to the winner of the AFC Championship.

Lamar also founded the Kansas City Chiefs (originally known as the Dallas Texans), which the family still owns today, and is credited with coining the term "Super Bowl."

Lamar's four children and his wife, Norma Hunt, inherited the Kansas City Chiefs after he died in 2006.

Norma Hunt died in 2023 at the age of 85, leaving siblings Clark Hunt, Sharron Hunt Munson, Lamar Hunt Jr., and Daniel Hunt, as co-owners of the team.

Clark Hunt, 59, is the chairman and CEO of the Chiefs organization.

Hunt took over as CEO in 2010 and hired Andy Reid as head coach in 2013. Since then, the Chiefs have created a winning dynasty with three Super Bowl wins in five seasons.

In an interview with "The Rich Eisen Show," Hunt said a Super Bowl three-peat "would really be a credit to Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, his teammates for the work they put in, not only over the last three years, but really the entire time they've been with our organization."

In addition to the Chiefs, the Lamar Hunt family owns the MLS team FC Dallas and a minority stake in the Chicago Bulls.

In addition to being chairman and CEO of the Chiefs, Clark Hunt is also chairman and CEO of FC Dallas, while his brother, Daniel Hunt, is the club's president.

The family's involvement with the team was actually decades in the making, as Lamar Hunt founded the Dallas Tornado and the North American Soccer League in 1967 before becoming a charter investor in Major League Soccer (MLS) in 1996.

In 1999, Lamar Hunt funded the first stadium dedicated solely to soccer in the US, Columbus Crew Stadium. That same year, he was awarded the National Soccer Hall of Fame Medal of Honor, and the US Open Cup Tournament was renamed for him.

The family took over the MLS club Dallas Burn in 2003, which was relaunched as FC Dallas two years later.

The Lamar Hunt family also has a large real-estate portfolio built under Hunt Midwest, based in Kansas City.

According to the company's website, Hunt Midwest is a "privately held real estate development company" with "more than $2.5 billion of developed projects" including senior living communities and residential, multifamily, and industry-focused locations like SubTropolis.

Clark Hunt is married to Tavia Shackles Hunt.

The couple married in 1993 and have three children together: Gracie, Ava, and Knobel.

Shackles Hunt is from Kansas City, Missouri, and was involved in beauty pageants, winning Miss Missouri Teen USA, Miss Kansas USA, and finishing second runner-up at the Miss USA pageant, People reported.

She has also worked as director of the Chiefs Women's Organization.

"I love being a leader of it and organizing events to familiarize our extended football family with Kansas City and plug them into serving the community," she told Her Life Magazine in 2018.

"It bonds us together on the field and off the field to gather to serve the community and enjoy fellowship together," she added.

Their daughter, Gracie Hunt, was crowned Miss Kansas USA in 2021 and works in public relations for the Chiefs.

Gracie Hunt, 25, grew up playing soccer but was forced to stop after suffering four concussions. She then pivoted to beauty pageants, winning Miss Texas Teen International in 2016, Miss Texas International in 2018, and Miss Kansas in 2021.

Now, Hunt works in public relations for the Chiefs while also taking on projects of her own, including a capsule collection with Wear by Erin Andrews, which she's shared online with her 660,000 Instagram followers.

Hunt told People in January, "Coming out with a capsule collection with Erin was a way for me to create something that is my own."

She is also a philanthropist, having founded Breaking Barriers Through Sports in 2016. According to her website, the organization "aims to give people a positive identity and confidence through athletics and living a healthy lifestyle."

She has been in a confirmed relationship with licensed real-estate broker and former college football player Cody Keith since September 2024.

 

Tavia and Gracie Hunt shared their views on family values following Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker's controversial commencement speech in May 2024.

In May 2024, Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker delivered a commencement speech at Benedictine College, a small Catholic school in Atchison, Kansas.

In his address, Butker told women in the audience they'd been told "the most diabolical lies" about the value in pursuing a career. He also told men to be "unapologetic" in their masculinity and fight "the cultural emasculation of men."

His words drew backlash, including from the sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, nuns affiliated with the college. They wrote in a statement on their website that his words "seem to have fostered division."

However, both Tavia and Gracie appeared to support Butker in respective social media posts and TV appearances.

Nearly a week after Butker's address, Tavia Hunt shared photos of her and her daughters on Instagram as well as a diagram documenting the pros and cons of stay-at-home parenting and a screenshot of an article on the happiness of married couples. In the lengthy caption, Shackles Hunt wrote that she's always encouraged her daughters to be educated and "chase their dreams," but noted that she also wants them to know that finding a spouse and raising a family "is one of the greatest blessings this world has to offer."

"Affirming motherhood and praising your wife, as well as highlighting the sacrifice and dedication it takes to be a mother, is not bigoted," she added. "Someone disagreeing with you doesn't make them hateful; it simply means they have a different opinion."

Given the post's themes of motherhood and faith, fans were quick to connect Shackles Hunt's words to those of Harrison Butker, who, in his commencement address, spoke about his wife, Isabelle, and how she embraced "one of the most important titles of all: homemaker."

Meanwhile, Gracie Hunt was asked about Butker's speech on a May 2024 episode of "Fox & Friends."

"I really respect Harrison and his Christian faith and what he's accomplished on and off the field," she said. Hunt also praised her mother's ability to stay home with her and her siblings while they were growing up, but added that "there are many women out there who can't make that decision."

Today, the Hunt family has a combined net worth of $24.8 billion.

Per Forbes, the Hunts are the 12th richest family in the US behind other familial dynasties like the Walton family, Mars family, and Cathy family.

• Google's parent company, Alphabet, reported fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday.
• The tech giant missed on cloud revenue and plans about $75 billion in capex this year.
• Alphabet continues to bet heavily on AI despite industry disruption from China's DeepSeek.

Slowing growth in Alphabet's cloud business and a bigger-than-expected capex forecast for 2025 dragged shares down more than 8% in postmarket trading.

The Google parent company, which reported fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, said consolidated revenue rose 12% in the period to $96.5 billion. Its key Google Cloud unit's sales fell slightly short of expectations, however.

Alphabet said it plans about $75 billion in capital expenditures this year. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected $57.9 billion. Big Tech companies have been increasingly under scrutiny for their heavy investments in artificial intelligence.

Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at Investing.com, said investors are "demanding clearer timelines on when AI spending translates to earnings and sales growth, not just promises," adding that Alphabet's stock dip following the earnings report "underscores concerns that rivals like Microsoft, with its OpenAI partnership, are better positioned to convert AI hype into revenue."

"Q4 was a strong quarter driven by our leadership in AI and momentum across the business," Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in the earnings release. "We are building, testing, and launching products and models faster than ever, and making significant progress in compute and driving efficiencies."

Here are the key numbers for the fourth quarter compared to analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg:

• Earnings per share: $2.15 vs. $2.13 expected
• Revenue: $96.5 billion vs. $96.62 billion expected
• Google advertising revenue: $72.46 billion vs. $71.73 billion
• YouTube advertising revenue: $10.47 billion vs. $10.22 billion expected
• Google Cloud revenue: $12.0 billion vs. $12.19 billion expected

EMARKETER senior analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf said successes in YouTube's performance and Google Search in Q4 stood out, adding that "Google has so far been able to maintain its commanding share of the search market despite escalating competition from retailers, social networks, and AI-first challengers like ChatGPT and Perplexity."

However, "Google's advantages in search hinge on its ubiquity and entrenched consumer behavior. 2025 could be the year those advantages meaningfully erode as antitrust enforcement and open source AI models change the game," Mitchell-Wolf said.

In late January, Chinese startup DeepSeek released its open-source AI model, which appeared to operate similarly well to US ones but which the company said was scaled for about $6 million — significantly less than the amount Big Tech companies have been investing in AI.

Tech stocks, including Alphabet's, took a hit in response. DeepSeek's market disruption was a frequent topic of conversation among tech leaders on earnings calls this week, including Pichai, who sought to assure investors that Google's AI offerings are more efficient and better optimized than those of its competitors.

"I think part of the reason we are so excited about the AI opportunity is we know we can drive extraordinary use cases, because the cost of actually using it is going to keep coming down, which will make more use cases feasible," Pichai said in response to a question about DeepSeek. "And that's the opportunity space. You know, it's as big as it comes, and that's why you're seeing us invest to meet that moment."

Cohen at Investing.com, said that "for Alphabet to reassure investors, it needs to demonstrate that its AI bets, from Gemini models to Workspace integrations, can reignite Cloud momentum while core advertising remains stable in an uncertain economy."

• Donald Trump on Saturday implemented new tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China.
• Canada and Mexico's leaders implemented retaliatory tariffs on the US in response.
• Retailers and trade researchers told BI they expect price hikes on consumer goods as tensions rise.

Retailers and consumers alike are bracing for the impacts of a new trade policy after President Donald Trump on Saturday fulfilled an oft-repeated campaign pledge by implementing new tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China.

The executive orders include a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff on China, which the Trump administration says is an effort to address the fentanyl crisis. In response to Trump's new trade policy, Canada and Mexico's leaders implemented retaliatory tariffs against the US, heightening tensions between the North American trade partners.

"The supply chains will be totally disrupted," William George, director of research at trade database company ImportGenius, told Business Insider. "The disruption this will cause for consumer purchases cannot be overstated."

BI previously reported economists predict many firms will pass increased costs caused by tariffs onto customers, and several companies — including Walmart and Columbia Sportswear — have already said they are preparing to raise prices in response.

Electronics, groceries, and apparel are among the most likely products to see price increases.

Companies try to stave off increases

George, whose company tracks details about shipments of goods to and from the US and around the globe, told BI that some big companies prepared for the president to implement his plan for new taxes and restrictions by frontloading shipments of goods in an apparent effort to stave off supply chain disruptions for as long as possible.

"Walmart's China-originating US maritime imports are up over 33% from 2023 to 2024," George said. That increase accounts for at least 14,000 additional shipping containers of imports brought in ahead of the expected tariff increases, he added.

ImportGenius data shows Columbia Sportswear's year-over-year imports were also up — over 50% from 2023 to 2024 and over 80% during the March to December period in 2024, when frontloading activity is believed to have spiked.

Representatives for Walmart and Columbia Sportswear did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI.

Christopher Tang, a UCLA professor and global supply chain scholar, said product stockpiles from major companies could keep prices steady at big box stores for a few weeks. Still, he expects price increases will soon hit shelves even for the most prepared businesses.

"They cannot buy all the inventory they'll need forever, so in forward buying scenarios, you'll see maybe a couple of weeks of inventory," Tang said. "Down the road, there are estimates that it will cost around $3,000 extra for the consumer to buy a car that's made in Mexico due to the tariffs. Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

Not every retailer has the resources to frontload shipping, so price increases may hit sooner. BI previously reported that some small business owners are working to diversify their supply chains, which may also come with increased costs, and others are planning to add new service fees to their products to offset anticipated price hikes.

"We're suffering with already high prices on everything — on meat, on eggs — and everything's going to go up again," Ruben Guerra, chairman of the Latin Business Association, representing 800,000 Latino businesses in California, told BI. "All the Mexican companies that I know and businesses across the border are all sending me responses saying 'Something needs to be done. We're going to lose a lot of business.'"

Heightened tensions risk a trade war

Outrage from consumers and business owners is a feature of the tariffs, not a bug, Tang, the UCLA professor, told BI. He said it would likely increase pressure on the governments of Mexico, Canada, and China to negotiate quickly with the Trump administration to meet its policy demands over border security — but the move is risky.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday evening announced 25% retaliatory tariffs on goods imported from the US, in response to the tariffs Trump levied on Canadian imports. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum late Saturday also imposed retaliatory 25% tariffs on imported US goods in response to Trump's trade moves, per Reuters.

BI previously reported economists predict China will respond similarly, with retaliatory tariffs, limiting exports of raw materials used for semiconductor production, or other changes to its trade policies to squeeze the US economy. No such measures have yet been announced.

"I think consumers need to prepare that this is going to affect everybody in the country, not just a couple of businesses," Guerra said.

• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday announced retaliatory tariffs against the US.
• Canada will impose a 25% tariff on US goods, some effective Tuesday and others in 3 weeks.
• The tariffs came after Donald Trump implemented 25% tariffs on Canadian goods imported to the US.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday announced retaliatory tariffs against the US in response to President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canadian imports, which were implemented earlier in the day.

"Tonight, I am announcing Canada will be responding to the US trade action with 25% tariffs against 155 billion dollars worth of American goods," Trudeau said during a press conference. "This will include immediate tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods as of Tuesday, followed by further tariffs on $125 billion worth of American products in 21 day's time to allow Canadian companies and supply chains to seek to find alternatives."

Trudeau said the tariffs will apply to everyday items shipped from the US to Canada, including alcohol, fruits, clothing, and shoes, as well as major consumer products like household appliances and furniture, and materials like lumber and plastics.

"And as part of our response, we are considering with the provinces and territories several non-tariff measures, including some relating to critical minerals, energy procurement and other partnerships," Trudeau said.

Canada's retaliatory measures come after Trump made good on an oft-repeated campaign pledge, implementing 25% tariffs on Canadian goods imported to the US in what he described as an effort to curb the fentanyl crisis.

A 2022 report by a congressional commission on combatting synthetic opioids found Canada is not a major source of fentanyl or other synthetic opioids to the United States.

Trudeau, who earlier this month announced his resignation as leader of Canada's Liberal Party, said during the Saturday press conference that he had not spoken to Trump since his inauguration on January 20 but pledged to remain available for negotiations over the countries' trade relations.

"If President Trump wants to usher in a new golden age for the United States, the better path is to partner with Canada, not to punish us," Trudeau said. "Canada has critical minerals, reliable and affordable energy, stable democratic institutions, shared values, and the natural resources you need. Canada has the ingredients necessary to build a booming and secure partnership for the North American economy, and we stand at the ready to work together."

Representatives for the Trump administration and Trudeau's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Late Saturday, in response to Trump's trade moves against the country, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also announced retaliatory 25% tariffs on imported US goods, per Reuters.

BI previously reported economists predict the Chinese government will respond similarly, with retaliatory tariffs, limiting exports of raw materials used for semiconductor production, or other changes to its trade policies to squeeze the US economy.