The Elon Musk-led DOGE's latest update on an accounting of its cost-cutting measures to date raises more questions than answers: It didn't take long before at least one major error was identified in its receipts.
Why it matters: There is uncertainty about the accuracy of the self-reported audit that could, in theory, make DOGE's moves across the federal government more transparent.
Federal Reserve officials said shifts in trade and immigration policy are among the factors that could derail inflation progress, according to minutes from the central bank's latest policy meeting released on Wednesday.
Why it matters: After two years fighting inflation, progress on cooling prices has stalled. The policies at the heart of President Trump's economic agenda — high tariffs and a crackdown on undocumented immigration — could risk a more bleak inflation outlook.
New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) sued the U.S. Department of Transportation on Wednesday after the Trump administration moved to rescind federal approval for the city's controversial congestion pricing program, which just went into effect in January.
Why it matters: If the program is overturned, billions fewer dollars will go toward improving the city's public transit infrastructure.
For more than a century, Congress has entrusted many policy areas to agencies that the president does not directly control. President Trump seeks to change that with an executive order Tuesday night.
Why it matters: The order claims direct presidential authority over the work of federal boards and commissions designed by Congress to operate without day-to-day oversight by the White House, with especially broad implications in the financial regulatory arena.
DOGE-led mass firings of federal employees are tearing at the promise of job security that's come with government work for more than a century.
Why it matters: Millions of federal workers are now feeling the same kind of job anxiety more familiar to those in corporate America, including the tech sector, where Elon Musk's firing playbook is far more common.
Democrats and Black and Gen Z shoppers are carving a new path of resistance by refusing to shop at certain stores over their political stances in the new Trump era.
Big companies like Target, Disney and Google have recently abandoned or changed their DEI policies and programs to align with the president's agenda.
Why it matters: Consumers on both sides of the political spectrum have used their wallets in the past to protest individual companies — with varying results.
The share of investors who think U.S. stocks are overvalued is at a 24-year high, according to a new BofA Global Research survey out Tuesday.
Why it matters: As well as U.S. stocks have done in the last couple of years, there's more concern than ever about how highly concentrated the market is, and what happens if the "Magnificent 7" driving those gains lose their luster.
Another head of state promoted a meme coin, only this time it went very, very badly.
Why it matters: There's been a lot of talk about why the Official Trump meme coin could be bad, but the Argentinian experiment did go bad, in less than a weekend.
Catch up fast: Friday evening, Javier Milei announced a Solana token with a tweet. The token was called LIBRA. It exploded in value, getting up to over $4 billion in market cap.
(Market cap being the value of all the tokens in existence — an especially fuzzy measure in the blockchain world.)
Not long after, it crashed over 90% in value, following a massive sale of the token, apparently by insiders (what has the look of a rug pull to many).
The next day, Milei deleted the original tweet. He wrote another saying that he was just promoting a private venture and he had nothing to do with it.
What they're saying: "This is the latest sordid episode emanating from Solana's meme coin complex, which as a whole is down significantly since topping in January on the launch of $TRUMP," Alex Thorn, research chief at Galaxy Digital, wrote in a report that goes into detail about allegations of insider trading on the LIBRA coin.
🍿 One on-chain sleuth presented evidence that seems to link dumping on LIBRA with dumping on Melania Meme, the first lady's meme coin.
Flashback: LIBRA was going to be the name for the stablecoin that the company then known as Facebook wanted to launch before Western regulators slapped it down.
Zoom out: The scandal has finally put headwinds on Milei, who the world has reluctantly feted as he delivered results on fixing his nation's economy, delivering a trade surplus and putting the brakes on inflation.
The slash-and-burn model that Milei has taken is one that Elon Musk seems to be emulating with the Department of Government Efficiency.
The upshot: The drama has knocked Solana's SOL coin down a notch on the global charts, falling back below Binance's BNB token again.
SOL was trading at $204.90 at its Friday peak. It's now at $170, a 17% drop.
But it's still the sixth-largest crypto asset in the world.
Europe faces two great crises — in the economic and security spheres — that are, ultimately, two sides of the same coin.
Why it matters: Europe has experienced subpar economic growth for a generation, and has underinvested in its own defense. Both problems are coming to a head, with the Trump administration's hostility as the catalyst.
Elon Musk speaks in the Oval Office last week. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
The Social Security Administration'stop official resigned over the weekend in the latest clash over the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) access to sensitive government records, theWashington Post reports.
Why it matters: The agency is quickly becoming a target of Elon Musk, who has claimed without conclusive evidence that there's rampant fraud from improper payments to dead people.
