Good morning. Andrew here. We’ve got a full rundown of the state dinner for Xi Jinping, China’s leader, and the C.E.O.s who made the pilgrimage to the White House. Many told me that they considered going an honor and liked the access, but some described it as a chore, given the frequent command-performance requests by the White House. Some worried that they might get even more invitations to be in Washington in the next two years if the House flips — to testify before Congress. Two guests not necessarily among the usual suspects: Bernard Arnault and his son Alexandre of LVMH, representing a non-U.S. company (they were also at President Trump’s inauguration), and Jeff Yass, the billionaire financier and investor in ByteDance. A few executives’ spouses were invited, while most were not, prompting a lot of tea leaf reading. In other news: MGM Resorts, we hear, is now considering buying People Inc., controlled by Barry Diller, after People dropped its bid to buy the roughly 73 percent of the casino operator that it doesn’t already own. (The Wall Street Journal first reported the deliberations.) MGM’s board has already authorized an active share repurchase program and isn’t thrilled with having a shareholder with such power. We’ll see if and what kind of premium MGM offers People. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)
What wasn’t said at the dinnerThere they were, dining on sesame-crusted sea bass and braised bok choy: leaders of U.S. technology giants who had gathered at the White House state dinner for Xi Jinping, China’s leader. Those assembled, including Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, had a combined estimated net worth well over $2 trillion and projected American dominance in artificial intelligence.
But despite their presence, the biggest issue dominating the sector right now, A.I. safety, hardly came up. That was emblematic of a state visit that appeared heavy on pomp and lighter on substance. Who attended the dinner: Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Sundar Pichai and Sergey Brin of Alphabet, and Lisa Su of AMD were present.
So, too, were nontech executives, including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone, Larry Fink of BlackRock, Jane Fraser of Citigroup, Jeff Yass of Susquehanna International Group, Mary Barra of G.M., Darren Woods of Exxon Mobil, and Bernard and Alexandre Arnault of LVMH. (Not present: C.E.O.s of major Chinese companies, even though some reportedly flew to Washington anyway in case they got last-minute invites.)
The most striking aspect of the dinner, and the visit overall, was what wasn’t said. Despite the guest list, President Trump said nothing about A.I. — or what he’s taken to calling “S.I.,” for “super intelligence” — in his prepared remarks. (Instead, he gave attendees a tour of the ballroom that’s under construction.) Before the dinner, Trump made clear that he’s happy with the A.I. status quo, without imposing additional safeguards on the technology: “I want to leave it exactly where it is,” he wrote on Truth Social. “That is China’s position also.” Xi delivered a slightly different message: “We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage A.I. for good and ensure that the development of A.I. is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people,” the autocratic Chinese leader said earlier in the day.
Trump and Xi also privately spoke about other issues, including trade, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and Taiwan, which Xi again publicly cautioned the U.S. and China not to fall into the “Thucydides trap” over. Anyone looking for other substantive news has been disappointed. U.S. and Chinese officials have discussed opening China’s markets to American agricultural and energy exports. But a lack of concrete details has led to falling prices for U.S. corn, soybeans and natural gas. Investors and others hoping for more information will have to keep waiting.
Oil prices dip. Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil, fell 1 percent this morning after a Reuters report of U.S.-Iran talks to potentially open the Strait of Hormuz as part of a phased peace deal. Elsewhere, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 5.17 percent after soaring yesterday. That volatility is roiling the mortgage market.
New York accuses Polymarket of offering illegal gambling. The office of Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, sued the prediction market yesterday, saying the company failed to get a state gambling license and is seeking fines and restitution. It was New York’s latest lawsuit against a major prediction market. The industry says it’s regulated on a federal level by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Jeff Bezos has invested more of his fortune in Blue Origin. The $2 billion commitment that the Amazon founder recently made to the space company brings his total to $30 billion since 2020, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing company documents. The start-up is raising funds as it prepares a satellite communication rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink business. Oracle’s force majeureThe backlash against data centers and fears about private credit are rattling Wall Street. Shares in Oracle and Blue Owl Capital fell sharply yesterday after Oracle sent a so-called force majeure notice to the developer of a data center project in New Mexico. Oracle will be the main tenant. The developer is a unit of Blue Owl, the private credit firm whose shares are down nearly 40 percent this year. The unusual move — force majeure provisions are more common in the world of mining and commodities to shield companies against climate or geopolitical risk — underscores how the industry is reckoning with unexpected challenges associated with the artificial intelligence buildout, Niko Gallogly reports. Step back: Permitting delays have snarled construction at the $165 billion site. The force majeure notice could allow Oracle to put off upcoming payments if the data center’s opening is delayed.
Oracle expects the data center to open in 2028. But a permit for a natural gas pipeline hookup has been repeatedly denied by Stephanie Garcia Richard, New Mexico’s land commissioner and the Democratic nominee in the state’s lieutenant governor race. She cited “extreme” burdens on the area’s natural resources in a letter to the pipeline developer. As some Americans grow weary of data centers, politicians in red and blue states have begun using their permitting power as a way to slow the projects. Oracle must make payments even if the project is delayed, two people with knowledge of the contract terms who were not authorized to speak publicly about it, told DealBook. “Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule,” Oracle wrote in a social media post. “We are fully committed to New Mexico and confident in our path forward.” Oracle has been on a borrowing binge. That has spooked some investors, with the yield on its 2056 bonds surpassing 8 percent yesterday, according to S&P Capital IQ — up sharply this year. But demand for compute is strong. “A lot of parties have incentives to make sure this goes through, and to source the energy needed,” Mandeep Singh, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, told DealBook.
Meta’s Muse shakes up retailMuse looks as if it could be the hit artificial intelligence product that Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s C.E.O., has been seeking. The A.I. agent has received rave reviews, attracted a host of corporate clients and turbocharged Meta’s share price. But some online retailers, including Amazon, view Muse and other A.I. agents as a competitive threat, setting up a high-stakes battle for customer access, Sri Muppidi reports. Racing out of the gate: Muse has garnered about 3.4 million downloads since its Sept. 8 launch, according to the market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. That surpasses the early growth rates of popular chatbots like Grok from xAI and Claude from Anthropic. But Amazon has blocked Muse because it prohibits third-party automated tools from shopping on its site. Amazon has its own A.I. shopping tools and this year won a court order blocking Perplexity AI’s shopping bots.
Other sites are embracing the technology. On Wednesday, Meta announced a range of retail partners, including Walmart, Best Buy and Sephora. Amazon could get boxed out, Brandon Ross, an analyst at LightShed Partners, told DealBook. Consumers might flock to Walmart from its rival because of the Muse partnership, he said. Muse’s potential to attract new customers is a draw. “We always want to be where our customers are,” said Anirban Kundu, Instacart’s chief technology officer. The grocery delivery company has agreed to a Muse integration.
Instacart isn’t alone. Expedia yesterday announced a new partnership with Meta to provide hotel and other travel options to Muse users. The restaurant booking site OpenTable is also partnering with Muse. In a sign of the new competitive lines being drawn, OpenTable doesn’t allow other third-party agents, like Instinct, to access its site.
Scaramucci’s ‘Wrong Moves’A lively crowd came out last night to see the financier, podcast host and President Trump ally turned critic Anthony Scaramucci, a.k.a. “The Mooch,” be interviewed at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Niko Gallogly reports. Scaramucci was promoting his new book, “All the Wrong Moves.” In it, he traces his personal trajectory, from his tumultuous 11-day tenure as Trump’s White House communications director in 2017 to his current position as a pundit on all things related to the president. Scaramucci is a Wall Street guy. He was a banker at Goldman Sachs and has founded two investment firms. But he’s not afraid to take a jab at moneyed interests. He told the audience that “we have to end Citizens United,” the 2010 Supreme Court decision that struck down campaign spending limits on corporations, calling it a “major threat to our democracy.” Scaramucci believes Wall Street is firmly in Trump’s corner. “Wall Street loves Trump,” he told DealBook after the event. “But I tell my friends, ‘You don’t want to live behind a barbed wire fence while your neighbors suffer.’” We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
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