Axios Closer

January 24, 2025
Friday is in the books! Here's what happened today...
Today's newsletter is 533 words, a 2-minute read.
🔔 The dashboard: The S&P 500 closed down 0.3%.
- Biggest gainer? NextEra Energy (+5.2%), the renewable energy company, reported Q4 earnings and reiterated its growth outlook for adjusted earnings per share through 2027.
- Biggest decliner? Texas Instruments (-7.5%), the semiconductor maker, delivered a disappointing earnings forecast for the current quarter.
1 big thing: Target pulls back on DEI
Target is pulling back on some of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, days after President Trump returned to the White House.
- Why it matters: The retailer follows a litany of major companies that have scaled back DEI initiatives, including Walmart, McDonald's and Meta.
State of play: Target posted a fact sheet on its corporate site today that lists some of its actions, including:
- Concluding its three-year DEI goals and Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiatives in 2025 "as planned";
- "Stopping all external diversity-focused surveys, including HRC's Corporate Equality Index";
- And changing the name of its "supplier diversity team" to "supplier engagement" to "better reflect our inclusive global procurement process across a broad range of suppliers."
The big picture: The landscape for DEI initiatives has weakened in recent months as Trump and the MAGA movement targeted companies that have made it a priority.
- In his first week in office, Trump has ramped up his anti-DEI campaign, issuing executive orders banning DEI efforts in the federal government and raising the prospect that private DEI programs could be illegal.
2. Charted: Novo's promising results


Positive early-stage results for a new weight-loss treatment got Novo Nordisk investors excited today.
- The new treatment, amycretin, a weekly shot, delivered 22% weight loss over 36 weeks in Phase 1B/2A trials, compared with a 2% gain for patients on a placebo.
Why it matters: The Ozempic and Wegovy maker is trying to keep up in the feverish pharmaceutical race to deliver new treatments for obesity.
The impact: Novo's stock, which was up nearly 14% at one point in intraday trading, closed up 8.5% in the U.S.
3. Friday catch-up
🚬 Tobacco stocks rose after the Trump administration reversed a Biden-era move to ban menthol cigarettes. The FDA had argued that menthol flavoring made cigarettes more appealing, especially to younger people. (Investing.com)
💰 Meta plans to spend up to $65 billion on AI-related projects in 2025, including a massive new data center and increased hiring. The CapEx forecast represents a roughly 50% increase over Meta's estimated 2024 number and would be more than 2x that from 2023. (Reuters)
💳 American Express posted a profit jump as high-income customers put more holiday spending on their credit cards than anticipated. CEO Steve Squeri said "There's some euphoria in the economic environment in the United States right now." (Bloomberg)
4. TikTok's app is now a valuable relic
Having a phone with the TikTok app has suddenly become a hot commodity.
What's happening: TikTok is unavailable to download from the Apple and Android app stores, but it's working for anyone who already had it on their phone.
- And some of those enterprising folks are trying to sell their phones for thousands of dollars, according to multiple reports.
By the numbers: "Many" are "listed in the $2,000 to $5,000 range, but as to whether anyone is actually buying them at this price, it still seems unlikely," Wired reported.
Zoom in: The New York Times cited an IT engineer who got a $1,200 offer on Facebook Marketplace for his iPhone 15 Pro with TikTok downloaded onto it, which is "nearly twice as much as a refurbished iPhone 15 Pro without TikTok."
💭 Nathan's thought bubble: If you needed any more proof of America's TikTok obsession, here you have it.
Today's newsletter was edited by Pete Gannon and copy edited by Carolyn DiPaolo.
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