The S&P 500 reached its latest milestone on the heels of major gains from big tech: the 7,000-point mark.
The benchmark index briefly rose to 7,001 after trading began Wednesday, before paring back its gains to end the day mostly flat. Companies like Intel and Nvidia surged, as the tech industry has fueled the stock market since the early 2000s.
Still, JPMorgan economists say indexes like the S&P 500 have outpaced the “real economy” in that time. Gold also continued its rally as investors are flocking to the safe haven amid challenges to the Federal Reserve’s independence and a weakening dollar.
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FIRST UP
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The Federal Reserve opted to keep interest rates steady at its January meeting, defying President Donald Trump’s demands. “In many ways, this meeting is a secondary event to the bigger concerns about Fed independence,” Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia Business School, told Forbes Daily. The Trump Administration recently launched a controversial criminal investigation into Powell and has sought to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Paradoxically, such threats raise expectations for inflation, House explains, making it harder for the central bank to cut rates.
Two key firms reported earnings Wednesday, with Tesla and Meta both exceeding Wall Street’s expectations. Still, Tesla reported its first-ever decline in annual revenue, and the company lost its position as the world’s largest EV maker early this month, falling behind China’s BYD. Meta said it expects to spend more this year as it invests more in AI.
MORE: In Tesla’s earnings call, CEO Elon Musk announced the company would end production of its premium Model S and Model X cars, and that a California factory will be converted to manufacture the company’s upcoming Optimus humanoid robots. In premarket trading early Thursday, Tesla’s shares were up more than 3% from Wednesday’s closing.
BUSINESS + FINANCE
Photo by Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images
Amazon said it would slash its corporate workforce by around 16,000, its second major round of layoffs in recent months. CEO Andy Jassy previously warned that the adoption of AI would shrink the tech giant’s workforce.
JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America will match the government’s initial $1,000 deposit into Trump accounts for the newborn children of eligible employees, following in the footsteps of other major financial firms. The government unveiled the accounts last year, which are invested in the stock market and allow parents to contribute up to $5,000 more per year.
WEALTH + ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Bill Gates paid another $2 billion to his ex-wife Melinda French Gates’ foundations, bringing the total amount he’s given to French Gates’ four foundations to $10.8 billion. The contributions are part of a promise he made when French Gates left the Gates Foundation in 2024, as the pair share a long history of transformative philanthropy.
TECH + INNOVATION
Waabi founder and CEO Raquel Urtasan
Waabi
The battle for robotaxi dominance is heating up, with Canadian self-driving truck startup Waabi joining the fray. The company says it’s raised up to $1 billion, including from Uber, to help commercialize its robotic big rig business and fund a surprise foray into the robotaxi market. Waabi will work exclusively with Uber to put tens of thousands of robotaxis on its ride-hail platform.
MONEY + POLITICS
The Customs and Border Protection agents involved in the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti were placed on administrative leave, a move that is standard protocol, a Department of Homeland Security official told the New York Times. ICE has continued its actions in Minnesota following the shooting, even as leaders in the state have pushed for de-escalation.
MORE: Senate Democrats are demanding that ICE agents be prohibited from wearing masks and required to wear body cameras, among other requests, in exchange for voting to keep the government open. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said “ICE has been unleashed without guardrails,” as Democrats sought to renegotiate DHS funding separately.
DAILY COVER STORY
OpenAI Wants To Create Biometric Social Network To Kill X’s Bot Problem
Open AI CEO Sam Altman
Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images
OpenAI’s development of its own social network appears to be crystalizing around a singular mission: obliterate the bot problem that has made an endless and toxic sump of the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Sources familiar with the project told Forbes that the social network, which is still in the very early stages of development, has been envisioned as a real-humans-only platform, a potential selling point for the AI giant that is looking to capitalize on its viral ChatGPT and Sora apps. But should it launch, the social network will be wading into a market of powerful incumbents, like X, Instagram, and TikTok.
The app is being developed by a very small team, and may include a biometric identity recognition element. Sources familiar with its development told Forbes that the team has considered requiring users to provide “proof of personhood” via Apple’s Face ID or the World Orb, a cantaloupe-sized eyeball scanner that uses a person’s iris to generate a unique, verifiable ID. World is operated by Tools for Humanity, a company OpenAI CEO Sam Altman founded and currently chairs.
True biometric verification would ensure that all accounts on OpenAI’s social network have a real person behind them. While social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn do attempt to verify identity, they generally do so via phone and email verification, and/or behavioral or network signals. Neither has pursued a biometric solution that would presumably definitively prove a user is human. Privacy advocates have warned about the risks of identity verification like World’s, as iris scans are unchangeable and could cause all manner of havoc in the wrong hands.
WHY IT MATTERS “Privacy issues aside, if OpenAI chooses to go down this path, they’ll face an uphill battle from social networking giants like Instagram and TikTok, not to mention X, owned by Altman nemesis Elon Musk,” says Forbes senior writer Anna Tong. “But with ChatGPT, OpenAI has established itself as a formidable orchestrator of consumer virality and they could very well do it again.”
MORE Musk’s xAI Will Be Profitable Sooner Than OpenAI, Former CFO Says
FACTS + COMMENTS
Spotify said it disbursed over $11 billion to artists and labels in 2025, as the music streaming giant has previously been criticized for its low payouts to artists. Independent musicians and labels accounted for about half of all royalties:
More than 10%: The increase in Spotify’s payouts from 2024
‘The largest annual payment to music from any retailer in history’: How the company described the payout
Nearly $70 billion: Spotify’s total payouts since its launch
STRATEGY + SUCCESS
January is a time that many professionals dive head first into their professional goals, but it’s important to keep up that momentum throughout the year. Focus on learning one high-impact skill rather than everything all at once, and align your work with what matters most to leadership. Don’t forget to begin building relationships with mentors and colleagues before you need to tap into your network for a job hunt.
VIDEO
QUIZ
A high-profile professional golfer is leaving the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and will return to the PGA Tour. Who is it?
A. Jon Rahm
B. Dustin Johnson
C. Patrick Reed
D. Phil Mickelson
Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Chris Dobstaff and Caroline Howard.