Investors lost over $400 billion this week to the realization that entire industries could be replaced by AI, Axios' Madison Mills writes.

• Before yesterday's rally, when the Dow topped 50,000 for the first time, the S&P 500 software and services index had shed about $1 trillion in market value in a week.

📉 What happened: Anthropic released a suite of software-killing tools — prompting investors to reconsider software companies' value.

• One, Claude Code, promises to write code on users' behalf, essentially creating software at will.
• The other, Cowork, offers plugins designed to help AI agents operate like a full-time coworker.
• "The releases appeared to many to confirm a doomsday scenario for the $1.2 trillion software industry, in which companies will be able to 'vibe code' their own tools ... and cancel their subscriptions," The Wall Street Journal reports.

🐂 Reality check: Some investors are still bullish on software stocks, especially now that prices have fallen.

• And big incumbents will be hard to replace. "With AI, code may become cheap, but context is expensive," PitchBook noted in a report. "[Y]ou can't LLM your way past 10 years of customer data."

🧠 The stock drubbing "was quickly met with skepticism from software company chiefs, analysts and some executives who oversee technology procurement," the Journal notes.

• "While few dispute the potential for AI to remake the business-software sector — along with virtually every facet of the economy — most believe the impacts will be more diffuse and delayed than this week's selloff suggested."

🔮 What's next: Investors' fears about AI's impact on software companies could spread to other industries ripe for disruption.

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President Trump's post of a video showing former President Obama and Michelle Obama as apes underscores how racist imagery and tropes have become normalized in the Trump era, Axios' Russell Contreras writes.

• Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he "didn't see the whole thing" before a staffer posted it. The Obama image was at the end of a minute-long video about voter fraud.
• Trump said he won't apologize: "No, I didn't make a mistake. ... Nobody knew that that was at the end."

The White House initially said criticism of the video was "fake outrage."

• The post was deleted after 12 hours. A White House aide said, insisting on anonymity: "A White House staffer erroneously made the post."

During Obama's presidency, such racist tropes often surfaced in fringe political spaces. But when it crossed into the mainstream, it typically resulted in resignations, firings, or campaign collapses.

• Racist images now spread instantly, often repackaged as "memes" or "satire." Rhetorical guardrails against racism, xenophobia and dehumanization have all but vanished on the American right.

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Some U.S. Olympians are speaking up about the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and other issues as the Winter Games get underway, Axios' Julianna Bragg reports:

• ⛷️ Jessie Diggins, a gold medalist cross-country skier from Minnesota, on Instagram: "I'm racing for an American people who stand for love, for acceptance, for compassion, honesty and respect for others."
• 🏒 Hockey player Kelly Pannek, also from Minnesota, paused a post-game conference the day after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, calling Trump's immigration operation "unnecessary and just horrifying." (Watch)
• ⛸️ Amber Glenn, Team USA's first openly LGBTQ+ women's singles figure skater, told reporters this week: "It isn't the first time that we've had to come together as a community and try and fight for our human rights."

🏂 Full schedule.

The Northeast is facing temperatures as low as 20 degrees below normal this weekend amid another blast of Arctic air, Alex Fitzpatrick reports.

• 💨 Winds of 15-25 mph with gusts to 50 mph will make it feel even colder in New York City, with dangerous wind chills as low as -20°F.

🌡️ The West largely has above-normal temps, with the relative warmth making its way eastward by midweek.

• Get the forecast.

The price of misjudging the switch to electric vehicles swelled again yesterday, as Jeep maker Stellantis announced $26.2 billion in charges — the largest yet by any automaker, Axios' Joann Muller reports.

• That amount reflects the cost of canceling EVs and compensating suppliers — plus what CEO Antonio Filosa called "poor operational execution" by predecessor Carlos Tavares.
• 📉 The automaker's shares fell nearly 25% yesterday on the news.

💸 Stellantis' move is the latest in a series of write-offs amid slower-than-expected EV demand:

• GM took $7.6 billion in charges for 2025, with more likely in 2026.
• Ford announced $19.5 billion in EV write-downs.
• VW took a $6 billion hit, mostly from scaling back its EV plans for Porsche.

Go deeper.

The great Peggy Noonan, who started her career at CBS News before joining the Reagan White House, writes in today's column, "A Lament for the Washington Post," after the paper chopped a third of its staff:

• "The capital of the most powerful nation on earth appears to be without a vital, fully functioning newspaper to cover it. That isn't the occasion of jokes, it's a disaster."

"It takes years to make good reporters — people who are trained, who love getting the story so much, who love the news so much, that they will wade into the fire, run to the sound of the guns," Noonan continues:

"They are grown only in newsrooms, not at home with laptops. They are taught by older craftsmen and professionals, through stories and lore. The Post's greatness and expertise can't easily be replaced and perhaps can't be replaced at all, or at least not for decades of committed building."

• Keep reading (gift link).

Read the email Executive Editor Matt Murray sent the newsroom.

For many Latinos, tomorrow's Super Bowl parties will double as a joyful form of resistance as global superstar Bad Bunny takes the halftime stage, Axios San Antonio's Madalyn Mendoza writes.

• 🏟️ The "Benito Bowl" has become a huge phenomenon, fueling a cottage industry of house parties, bar events, merch and recipes centered on the Puerto Rican artist, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio.

😡 Bad Bunny's announcement as this year's halftime performer was immediately met with MAGA backlash.

• Veronica Ramirez, owner of Texas-based Sin Miedo Market (and maker of "Benito Bowl" merch), says: "In a political climate that targets our communities, our joy becomes radical."

Go deeper: "If You Hate Bad Bunny, I Have Bad News for You ... Bad Bunny Won," former Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman writes in a N.Y. Times op-ed:

• "Bad Bunny's performance isn't just the story of the ascendancy of a single performer, or of one genre, or even of Latin music more broadly. It's the sign of something bigger still."
• ➡️ "America's pop culture today is multilingual, polycultural and international at its very core." (Gift link)

Pundits and sportsbooks are overwhelmingly picking the Seahawks to win Super Bowl LX tomorrow, Axios Seattle's Melissa Santos writes.

• Out of 57 experts polled by ESPN, 47 picked Seattle over the New England Patriots.
• 🎰 DraftKings Sportsbook is favoring Seattle by 4.5 points.

🔁 Reality check: Unexpected events — say, an interception at the 1-yard line with under 30 seconds to go — can reverse a team's fortunes in an instant.

🍿 Sneak peek at Super Bowl ads: Sabrina Carpenter tries to build the perfect man out of Pringles, but he keeps falling apart. Watch.

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