The president hosted a highly anticipated "exclusive" dinner for the largest holders of his meme coin, Official Trump, at his golf club in Virginia on Thursday night.
Why it matters: Fight Fight Fight, LLC — a company linked to President Trump's family — sold a digital token that gave anyone in the world a chance to pay for a night of access to the commander-in-chief.
Why it matters: Apple has been slow to craft an effective AI strategy and its high-end Vision Pro headset has failed to take off with consumers. Meanwhile, Meta's Ray-Ban glasses are popular and OpenAI has just doubled-down on an AI device strategy.
Defense-tech upstart CX2 plans to hire more people and accelerate development of its electronic warfare tools on the heels of a $31 million raise, executives told Axios.
The big picture: Mastery of the electromagnetic spectrum is a life-or-death matter, and the U.S. has for years let its electronic warfare arsenal atrophy.
Top Senate Democrats aren't relenting in their push to add guardrails for President Trump and others to landmark cryptocurrency legislation, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: 18 Democrats voted earlier this week to advance the bill. But sources familiar with the discussions say some of that support could slip unless the bill adds basic protections against corruption by public officials.
Anthropic debuted the first models in its latest Claude 4 series Thursday — including one, Claude 4 Opus, that it says is the world's best at coding.
Why it matters: Competition is hot between Anthropic, Google and OpenAI for the "best frontier model" crown as questions persist about the companies' ability to push current AI techniques to new heights.
The reputations of companies that stumbled into politics or the culture wars have been hit hardest since 2019, when the Axios Harris Poll 100 first launched the rankings.
Why it matters: Most of the biggest decliners have consistently made headlines for polarizing acts or operational failures.
A record number of CEOs exited in 2024, with most executive transitions taking place when corporate reputation is in free fall, according to trend data from the Axios Harris Poll 100 reputation rankings.
Why it matters: This highlights the direct link between a CEO's performance and the company's reputation.
The Trump administration plans to end production of the penny after the cost of making it ballooned and it became increasingly useless as currency.
Why it matters: The U.S. Mint reported losing $85.3 million on the nearly 3.2 billion pennies it produced in the 2024 fiscal year that ended in September.
Open source AI is transforming the economy by boosting productivity, entrepreneurship, and economic growth with nearly 9 in 10 organizations that adopt AI utilizing some form of open source technology in their AI infrastructure.
OpenAI will partner with United Arab Emirates to build Stargate UAE, a massive new Middle East data center that's part of the company's OpenAI for Countries push, the deal's participants announced Thursday.
Why it matters: The deal is a huge AI bet by the Emirates, which will also secure ChatGPT Plus subscriptions for its entire population, making it the first country to do so.
Men are far more likely to "buy the dip," per a BlackRock survey shared first with Axios that examines how voters respond to stock market declines and considers their general feelings about retirement.
Why it matters: The findings illustrate a broader issue when it comes to investing and saving for retirement — there's a gender gap that puts women, who also have longer life expectancies, at a disadvantage.
With thousands of their brick-and-mortar stores closing and online vendors proliferating, big pharmacy chains like CVS and Walgreens are seeing their reputations slide, according to the annual Axios Harris Poll 100.
Why it matters: The souring consumer sentiment comes as pharmacy giants mount major turnaround plans in the hopes they can overcome slumping in-store sales, overexpansion and backlash from putting more products under lock and key and shortening pharmacy hours.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says he's convinced of two things: The U.S. will make a long list of trade deals by mid-summer, and the tariffs forcing those deals won't raise retail prices.
Why it matters: Investors, business leaders and consumers are praying he's right.
With its multibillion-dollar purchase of Apple design legend Jony Ive's startup, OpenAI is doubling down on a bet that the AI revolution will birth a new generation of novel consumer devices.
Why it matters: Just as the web first came to us on the personal computer and the cloud enabled the rise of the smartphone, OpenAI's gamble is that AI's role as Silicon Valley's new platform will demand a different kind of hardware — and that Ive, who played a key role in designing the iPhone and other iconic Apple products, is the person to build it.
Prices are going up, that's clear now — but the nation's biggest retailers are taking very different approaches to what they say on the impact of tariffs publicly.
Why it matters: President Trump's trade war is stirring echoes of the inflation that took hold of the economy just three years ago.
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