Axios

The CEOs of Meta, Alphabet, TikTok and Snap have been invited back to Capitol Hill for a broad oversight hearing in June, Axios has learned.

• Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is planning a June 23 hearing titled "Examining Tech Industry Practices and the Implications for Users and Families: Is This Social Media's Big Tobacco Moment?" per committee spokesperson Hannah Akey.

Three major conflicts are shaping America's AI race against China in real time, with changing global dynamics shifting the terms week by week:

• The race with China on advancing AI models
• Conflicting federal vs. state laws in the U.S.
• European AI policy

Why it matters: All three factors are fraught with politics and delicate dynamics, and all will help determine whether the U.S. continues to lead the world in advanced AI.

A new political thriller is mulling what would happen if the United States had a 17-year-old as president.

The big picture: The premise is meant to challenge young Americans to run for office, taking control away from aging politicians and giving it to those who will live with the government's decisions for decades to come.

Dating app fatigue is driving younger users away, but one demographic is just discovering the swipe: seniors.

Why it matters: As more older Americans live longer and increasingly alone, they're looking for love the new-fashioned way.

OpenAI's AI coding agent Codex is coming to the ChatGPT mobile app Thursday.

Why it matters: OpenAI is trying to make Codex cheaper and easier to use as it battles Anthropic for developers and enterprise customers.

The Federal Reserve's annual household survey shows Americans are managing even as their perceptions of the broader economy have collapsed.

Why it matters: The gap between how people feel about their own finances and how they view the national economy remains far wider than pre-pandemic times. That divergence could help explain why consumer spending has chugged along even as other sentiment readings hit record lows.

The good news in Thursday morning's April retail sales report is that the overall numbers are holding up fine. The bad news is that there are early signs of higher energy prices crimping Americans' spending on everything else.

The big picture: One of the great questions for the economy in the months ahead is how much demand destruction there will be from the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the resulting surge in prices for fuel and other commodities.

WASHINGTON – STEM education may not be as valuable as it once was because of AI's ability to code on its own, Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said at an Axios Live event.

The big picture: AI is reshaping every industry and is directly tied to economic growth, increasing pressure on schools and employers to equip the workforce with AI tools and skills.

Axios' Courtenay Brown and Ashley Gold hosted conversations with Young and Anne Kress, president of Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA). The May 12 event was sponsored by Amazon.

What they're saying: "Having a certain command of ideas and being able to translate those novel ideas into language that can be sent into the algorithm and having the ability, with precision, to tell an algorithm what you need, describe your circumstances, describe the end state you're trying to arrive at, will be incredibly valuable," Young said.

Zoom in: Enrollment trends are shifting as students rethink which industries will remain resilient in the AI era.

• "I heard somebody say once, 'if you're in a profession where you're fixing things or fixing people, you're probably on a good path,'" Kress said.
• NOVA has seen a decline in students in computer science, but a major uptick in health care, trades and education, she added.
• "Students who come out ready to learn how to learn, to continually skill, re-skill, up-skill, cross-skill, they're going to be fine."

Content from the sponsor's segment:

In a View From the Top conversation, Holly Sullivan, vice president of worldwide economic development policy at Amazon, said AI should be viewed as a tool that will augment, rather than replace, how people work.

• "It's about upskilling everyone to be able to not only utilize but deploy and understand AI," she said.
• "We've had robotics in our facilities for many years … so we have evidence that AI and robotics do not replace people. They make people safer. They provide efficiencies and increase productivity."

Cerebras Systems, a Silicon Valley-based AI chipmaker, raised $5.6 billion in its IPO.

Why it matters: We knew this would be the year's largest IPO, but it crushed even those high expectations — benefiting from a broader surge in semiconductor stocks.

Elon Musk's $1 trillion-plus SpaceX isn't a public company yet, but its size and ambitions are already upending the stock market and sparking questions over the power and influence wielded by such behemoths.

Why it matters: The IPO, expected next month, would signal the start of a new AI era for the public markets, potentially valuing SpaceX as much as $2 trillion.