President Trump said Wednesday he's "giving very serious consideration" to bringing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage giants, public.
The big picture: Trump said on Truth Social he'll speak with officials including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Federal Housing Finance Agency director William Pulte, about the matter "and will be making a decision in the near future."
Bayer is fighting to keep the popular agricultural herbicide Roundup available for farmers in the U.S., but could "reach the end of the road" and pull out of the market amid mounting challenges, CEO Bill Anderson said at an Axios event on Wednesday night.
Why it matters: Anderson said the chemical, known as glyphosate, has been repeatedly found safe and is "table stakes" for feeding the world.
President Trump felt "horrible" about the impacts of tariffs on China that hit American businesses in April, Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick said at an Axios event on Wednesday.
Why it matters: Lutnick said the pain was necessary — but he again insisted prices won't rise for consumers.
The U.S. expects to make trade deals with "most" of its key partners before a pause on tariffs runs out this summer, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Wednesday at an Axios Building the Future event in D.C.
Why it matters: The uncertainty around how many trade deals are made, when, and with whom has roiled markets for months.
OpenAI said Wednesday it will pay $5 billion in stock for io, a startup co-founded by Jony Ive to create a new generation of AI devices.
Why it matters: The move will place Ive — the Steve Jobs collaborator who masterminded many of Apple's design breakthroughs — in a key creative role for OpenAI.
The Department of Government Efficiency asked the Supreme Court Wednesday to block a lower court's order that it provide a government watchdog group with documents about its work.
Bitcoin set a new all-time high Wednesday, breaking its record from around the time of the inauguration in January.
Why it matters: This bull run is behaving differently from past crypto booms — most notably, the retreat from the recent high has not led to massive losses.
During a visit by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, President Trump had videos shown in the Oval Office purporting to show evidence of violence against white people in the country.
The big picture: The visit comes after Trump cut all foreign assistance to the country and parroted false allegations that white South Africans are being subjected to genocide, while granting them refugee status in the U.S.
A spreadsheet making the rounds in Congress illustrates the stark tariff-era math for America's retailers, leaving them with two options: hike consumer prices or risk a cash crunch that threatens their survival.
Why it matters: The numbers, an illustrative example produced by a footwear trade association, show that many importers of consumers goods from China can't make the math work, even after the reduction in tariff rates from 145% to 30%.
Public trust in self-driving vehicles is critical, but without federal standards, companies in the sector get to decide what to share about the safety of their technology, with varying levels of transparency.
As Tesla gears up to launch robotaxis next month in Austin, Texas, there are still plenty of outstanding questions.
Why it matters: Even if you're personally not ready to ride in the back seat of a robotaxi, everyone will be sharing the road with them soon enough.
Public trust in self-driving vehicles is critical, but without federal standards, companies in the sector get to decide what to share about the safety of their technology, with varying levels of transparency.
As Tesla gears up to launch robotaxis next month in Austin, Texas, there are still plenty of outstanding questions.
Why it matters: Even if you're personally not ready to ride in the back seat of a robotaxi, everyone will be sharing the road with them soon enough.
People want assurances that cars with no one behind the wheel will behave predictably and safely.
The big picture: AV companies use various tactics to build public trust.
Tesla Motors and SpaceX saw their brand reputations crater in the past year, according to new Axios Harris Poll 100 survey results.
Why it matters: Elon Musk's polarizing political activism appears to have come at the expense of his largest companies, as Republicans expressed more favorable opinions than did Democrats, Axios' Dan Primack writes.
By the numbers: Tesla was in 8th place in the 2021 reputation ranking of America's 100 most visible companies, but last year tumbled to 63rd and now is near the very bottom at 95th.
Less than three weeks after Aurora Innovation made a splash with the commercial launch of the first driverless semi-trucks in Texas, the company is putting a humanobserverin the driver's seat.
Why it matters: The decision is another speed bump for an industry leader after a widely watched milestone, coming just days after co-founder Sterling Anderson left to take a big job at General Motors.
The big picture: Aurora's autonomous technology will still do the driving, and the change won't affect the company's development plans, CEO Chris Urmson wrote in a blog post.
Urmson said the decision to move an "observer" from the rear of the cab into the driver's seat was made at the request of Paccar, the manufacturer of Aurora-owned Peterbilt trucks.
Catching you up on worthy news you might have missed ...
❌ American investors were blocked from buying shares in Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd., or CATL, as the huge Chinese battery maker had its trading debut in Hong Kong. (The New York Times)
Tesla uses CATL's batteries in some of its cars, and Ford is licensing CATL technology to produce lower-cost batteries in Michigan.
💰 Indigo Technologies is preparing to raise a $300 million Series C to build electric delivery vans and taxis equipped with a motor and suspension in every wheel, Axios' Alan Neuhauser scooped (Axios Pro Deals)
🔋 The U.S. Commerce Department set the stage for anti-dumping duties on Chinese EV battery materials, which would help U.S. graphite producers but could also further drive up the cost of electric vehicles. (Bloomberg, via Yahoo Finance)
🚖 Amazon's autonomous vehicle unit Zoox will soon start testing its self-driving vehicles in Atlanta ahead of launching a robotaxi service there. (TechCrunch)
Self-driving tech startup May Mobility often gets overshadowed by well-funded peers like Alphabet's Waymo or Tesla. But it's quietly gaining traction as a future robotaxi partner for Uber and Lyft to complement its public transit niche.
I rode along with CEO and co-founder Edwin Olson the other day in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to see how its technology has progressed.
It's the first time I was a passenger in a May Mobility van without a backup safety driver in the front seat.
We cruised around the southern end of Ann Arbor, encountering fairly light traffic through business areas and residential neighborhoods.
Target officials said Wednesday they plan to "offset the vast majority" of tariff impacts to consumers and remain "price competitive."
Why it matters: The Minneapolis-based retailer saw sales decline more than expected in the first quarter of the year, and warned of a "high degree of uncertainty" between tariffs and consumer confidence.
The big picture: Musk, who has led an upheaval of the federal government under Trump, was born in South Africa and has been an open critic of its government.
Some changes implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency at the Social Security Administration are reportedly being rolled back, but the agency is still struggling with fallout from the Elon Musk chainsaw.
Why it matters: The retreat shows the limits of DOGE's slash-and-burn strategy at an agency that is deeply enmeshed with Americans' lives.
So-called artificial general intelligence (AGI) — widely understood to mean AI that matches or surpasses most human capabilities — is likely to arrive sometime around 2030, Google's co-founder Sergey Brin and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said Tuesday.
Why it matters: Much of the AI industry now sees AGI as an inevitability, with predictions of its advent ranging from two years on the inside to 10 years on the outside, but there's little consensus on exactly what it will look like or how it will change our lives.
The U.S. should curb its "ever-increasing" debt burden, International Monetary Fund first deputy managing director Gita Gopinath said in an interview with the Financial Times, published Tuesday.
Why it matters: Gopinath's comments come days after Moody's downgraded the U.S. credit rating due to increasing government debt and interest payment ratios and as fiscal watchdogs raise concern that President Trump's proposed tax cuts would significantly increase the deficit.
