
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Oil prices sunk 7% to a four-year low Friday, amid concerns economic fallout of President Donald Trump’s wide-reaching tariffs could put a drag on demand.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>Prices tumbled after China announced it would retaliate against the U.S. in a global trade war—imposing a 34% tariffs on U.S. goods, in line with Trump’s new 34% tariffs against China—with analysts saying traders were likely acting on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oil-prices-crash-trump-tariffs-opec-production-recession-trade-war-2025-4" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">damage</a>&nbsp;tariffs could do to global trade and economic growth.</p>



<p>Concerns of a tariff-induced drop in demand comes as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+, announced it is increasing output to 411,000 barrels per day in May, up from the previously planned 135,000 barrels per day, the organization said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opec.org/pr-detail/557-03-april-2025.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p>



<p>Brent crude, the benchmark for global oil prices, dropped $4.57 to $65.56 a barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate was down $5 to $62 a barrel as of Friday afternoon.</p>



<p>Since Wednesday’s market close ahead of Trump’s tariff announcement, the price of Brent crude has dropped nearly 13% and WTI decreased 14%.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-will-gas-get-cheaper">Will Gas Get Cheaper?</h2>



<p>While crude oil prices do impact how much drivers pay at the pump, gas prices are also influenced by refinery and distribution costs, taxes and corporate profits, so it’s unclear exactly how an oil sell-off will affect consumers. The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $3.27, up from $3.10 a month ago but down from $3.57 last year, according to AAA&nbsp;<a href="https://gasprices.aaa.com/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">data</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-much-more-could-oil-prices-drop">How Much More Could Oil Prices Drop?</h2>



<p>Goldman Sachs lowered its crude oil price forecasts late Thursday night, citing weakened demand, tariff escalation, growing recession risks and increased supply. The firm downgraded its Dec. 25 price forecasts of Brent and WTI to $66 and $62, respectively.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-did-trump-put-new-tariffs-on-oil">Did Trump Put New Tariffs On Oil?</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-imports-exempted-trumps-sweeping-tariffs-2025-04-02/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Fuel</a>&nbsp;was exempt from the sweeping tariffs announced Wednesday, but Trump has touted higher energy production and lower prices as a way to lower the inflation rate, which remains above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">Crucial Quote</h2>



<p>&#8220;The trade war escalated, recession fears rise and consequently oil demand growth is to take a sizeable hit,”&nbsp;<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-tumbles-8-china-retaliates-124226355.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>&nbsp;Tamas Vargas, analyst at PVM Oil Associates. “The fact that U.S. energy imports are exempted, and OPEC+ produced a bombshell by re-adding more oil in May than originally planned pours fuel to the bear&#8217;s fire. Volatility will persist, risk is off, and currently it is impossible to foretell when appetite for oil and equities will return.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>The drop in oil prices comes as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/04/03/frances-macron-says-european-businesses-should-halt-us-investment-as-trump-tariffs-face-global-backlash/">global leaders</a>&nbsp;are reacting to the wide array of “reciprocal tariffs” levied by Trump on more than 180 countries, which includes baseline 10% tariffs for all. On Friday, Chinese state media announced it will impose an additional 34% import duty on U.S. goods in retaliation against Trump’s 34% tariff on Chinese goods (on top of existing tariffs, bringing the actual rate to 54%).</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p>France’s Macron Says European Businesses Should Halt U.S. Investment—As Trump Tariffs Face Global Backlash (<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/04/03/frances-macron-says-european-businesses-should-halt-us-investment-as-trump-tariffs-face-global-backlash/">Forbes</a>)</p>



<p>China Retaliates Against Trump’s Tariffs With 34% Duties On U.S. Goods (<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/04/04/china-retaliates-against-trumps-tariffs-with-34-duties-on-us-goods/">Forbes</a>)</p>



<p>Here’s What Will Cost More After Trump’s Tariffs: Coffee, Cars—And Possibly A $2,300 iPhone (<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/04/03/heres-what-will-cost-more-after-trumps-tariffs-coffee-cars-and-possibly-a-2300-iphone/">Forbes</a>)</p>



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Oil pump with candle stick graph chart in the background. World Oil Industry

Oil Prices Drop 7% To Four-Year Low As Tariff Fallout Sparks Recession Fears


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>China will impose an additional 34% import duty on all U.S. goods starting next week, in retaliation against President Donald Trump’s decision to impose a 34% “reciprocal tariff” on Chinese goods, state media announced on Friday.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>According to the&nbsp;<a href="https://english.news.cn/20250404/8626fe444e37441c86e234fe94a2ad2a/c.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">state-controlled Xinhua News agency</a>, the additional 34% tariff will go into effect on April 10 and affect&nbsp;<a href="http://www.news.cn/fortune/20250404/1e6a6bc4d7f64612950615a8af82cef8/c.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">all goods</a>&nbsp;imported from the U.S.</p>



<p>The new levies were&nbsp;<a href="http://www.news.cn/fortune/20250404/a61307ec766c4536a61a47d17ba35f59/c.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">announced</a>&nbsp;by the Chinese State Council’s Tariff Commission, which said that the Trump administration’s tariff action “seriously undermines China&#8217;s legitimate rights and interests.”</p>



<p>The commission described the U.S. reciprocal tariffs as “typical unilateral bullying” and warned that the move also undermines America’s own interests and endangers global economic development.</p>



<p>In a separate&nbsp;<a href="https://english.news.cn/20250404/a9f89273211642f991c5d135200e918d/c.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">announcement</a>, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it had filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization against the U.S. tariffs, to allow the global trade body’s ’s dispute settlement mechanism to settle the issue.</p>



<p><a href="http://www.news.cn/fortune/20250404/7cb1b8a7a643472c921fc4db73e62421/c.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Beijing said</a>&nbsp;the latest round of Trump’s tariffs “seriously violate WTO rules” and damages the “legitimate rights and interests of WTO members,” and undermines the international economic and trade order.</p>



<p>In addition to the tariffs, the commerce ministry also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/syxwfb/art/2025/art_1351f2622f654d75a19bb880f07e6517.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">announced</a>&nbsp;expanded export controls controls on certain rare earths to the U.S. with immediate effect.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-have-u-s-futures-reacted-to-the-retaliatory-tariffs">How Have U.s. Futures Reacted To The Retaliatory Tariffs?</h2>



<p>All three major futures indexes nosedived sharply after the Chinese announcement, with Dow Futures falling nearly 2.9% to 39,584 points. The benchmark S&amp;P 500 dropped nearly 3% to 5,272.00 points in premarket trading early on Friday while tech-heavy Nasdaq futures were down 3.1% to 18,083.75 points.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-tariffs-have-been-placed-on-chinese-imports-into-the-u-s">What Tariffs Have Been Placed On Chinese Imports Into The U.s.?</h2>



<p>On Wednesday, Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/04/02/trump-announces-reciprocal-tariff-rates-54-for-china-20-on-eu-live-updates/">announced</a>&nbsp;sweeping “reciprocal tariffs” against 180 other countries and territories, and said they were in response to levies and non-tariff barriers placed on U.S. goods. China was hit with a 34% “reciprocal tariffs” which the White House argues was a “discounted” response against what they claimed was 67% charged by China. The administration did not explain how it came up with the percentage, but&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/business/economy/trump-tariff-rates-calculation.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reports suggest</a>&nbsp;the figure prices in the trade deficit that the U.S. has with the other country. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that this levy was on top of the previously announced 20% tariffs on all Chinese goods, bringing the total rate to 54%.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/04/04/trump-and-advisors-offer-contradictory-takes-on-tariff-negotiations-what-to-know/">Trump And Advisors Offer Contradictory Takes On Tariff Negotiations—What To Know</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/04/03/frances-macron-says-european-businesses-should-halt-us-investment-as-trump-tariffs-face-global-backlash/">France’s Macron Says European Businesses Should Halt U.S. Investment—As Trump Tariffs Face Global Backlash</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/04/02/trump-announces-reciprocal-tariff-rates-54-for-china-20-on-eu-live-updates/">Trump Announces Reciprocal Tariff Rates—54% For China, 20% On EU</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



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American Chinese windy day flags fly together on flagpole

China Retaliates Against Trump’s Tariffs With 34% Duties On U.S. Goods


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Amazon and mobile technology firm AppLovin are the latest to make acquisition offers for TikTok, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/business/media/amazon-tiktok-bid.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">multiple</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/tiktok-ban-bids-amazon-applovin-62a1d573" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reports</a>, joining Oracle, Microsoft and other potential buyers on the day when the White House is reportedly reviewing an offer—just days before the popular app is required to sell to an American company or face a ban in the U.S.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>Amazon’s offer is for all of TikTok, according to three unnamed people familiar with the bid cited by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/business/media/amazon-tiktok-bid.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>, which noted some parties involved in negotiations “do not appear to be taking Amazon’s bid seriously” (Amazon declined to comment).</p>



<p>An offer letter was made out to Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the Times reported, citing an unnamed person briefed on the matter.</p>



<p>AppLovin, a publicly traded company that helps developers market and advertise their apps, made an offer for TikTok and talked to billionaire casino magnate&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/steve-wynn/">Steve Wynn</a>&nbsp;about backing the bid, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/tiktok-ban-bids-amazon-applovin-62a1d573" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">The Wall Street Journal</a>.</p>



<p>AppLovin told the Trump administration it could address national security concerns about TikTok if it owned the app, the Journal reported.</p>



<p>Trump was holding a meeting Wednesday with Vance, Lutnick and others to discuss an offer, according to multiple reports.</p>



<p>The last-minute bids come three days before TikTok’s potential ban or sale to an American company, and about two weeks after Vance told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/jd-vance/vance-high-level-agreement-tiktok-april-5-deadline-rcna196410" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">NBC News</a>&nbsp;a deal will be made that “satisfies our national security concerns” and “allows there to be a distinct American TikTok enterprise.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-can-the-trump-administration-delay-the-tiktok-ban-again">Can The Trump Administration Delay The Tiktok Ban Again?</h2>



<p>Yes, though Vance has said the Trump administration is aiming to get a deal done before the April 5 deadline. If no deal is reached by then, President Donald Trump could issue another order pushing the ban back by “30 days or longer” to “fully iron out the complex deal structure,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told&nbsp;<a href="https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/is-tiktok-being-banned-trump-deadline-sale-1236353914/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Variety</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-who-could-buy-tiktok">Who Could Buy Tiktok?</h2>



<p>In addition to Amazon and AppLovin, Oracle has emerged as a leading suitor for TikTok, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/16/white-house-oracle-tiktok-00232302?nname=playbook&amp;nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&amp;nrid=631a6099-caed-48c6-85c8-182447684362" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Politico</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/oracle-leading-contender-help-run-tiktok-new-deal?utm_campaign=Editorial&amp;utm_content=Article&amp;utm_medium=organic_social&amp;utm_source=twitter" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">The Information</a>. The White House has spoken with Oracle about a deal that would give the computer technology company oversight of TikTok’s U.S. data and make it responsible for keeping that information away from China,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/16/white-house-oracle-tiktok-00232302?nname=playbook&amp;nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&amp;nrid=631a6099-caed-48c6-85c8-182447684362" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Politico</a>&nbsp;reported. Trump told reporters in March his administration was speaking with four potential TikTok buyers. Though he did not provide any company names, he has mentioned&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/01/26/these-billionaires-companies-and-investors-could-buy-tiktok-as-oracle-reportedly-weighs-deal-with-trump/">Microsoft as a potential buyer</a>&nbsp;in the past and hoped there would be a “bidding war” for TikTok. Microsoft made an offer for TikTok as far back as 2020, but it collapsed not long after discussions began. Other companies and people that have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/01/26/these-billionaires-companies-and-investors-could-buy-tiktok-as-oracle-reportedly-weighs-deal-with-trump/">shown interest</a>&nbsp;in purchasing TikTok include&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oracle.com/news/announcement/oracle-walmart-announce-tentative-us-government-approval-091920/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Walmart</a>, video-sharing platform Rumble, Perplexity AI, YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, also known as MrBeast, and billionaire Frank McCourt’s internet advocacy group Project Liberty.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>The law forcing TikTok to sell itself to an American company or be banned in the U.S. was signed by former President Joe Biden last year following bipartisan national security concerns, with lawmakers concerned that China uses the data collected by the app to spy on Americans. Trump extended the deadline on TikTok’s potential ban or sale by 75 days after he took office. National security concerns over TikTok have persisted into the dealmaking process and are a key part of acquisition talks, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/03/14/vance-says-tiktok-will-almost-certainly-reach-deal-to-avoid-us-ban-next-month/">Vance</a>, who said last month he believed the app will stay operational in the U.S. “in a way that’s protective of Americans’ data privacy and America’s national security.” TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance have denied allegations they have compromised American data privacy, though Forbes has found the app&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/12/22/tiktok-tracks-forbes-journalists-bytedance/">spied on journalists</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2024/04/17/tiktok-mishandled-advertisers-data-bytedance-china/?sh=8e548b1da2b5">mishandled advertiser data</a>&nbsp;and stored some&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tiktok-creators-data-security-china/?sh=37d6f4577048">creators’ financial data</a>&nbsp;in China.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2025/03/16/what-we-know-about-trumps-tiktok-deal-as-reports-suggest-oracle-could-take-lead-role/">What We Know About Trump’s TikTok Deal—As Reports Suggest Oracle Could Take Lead Role&nbsp;</a>(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/03/14/vance-says-tiktok-will-almost-certainly-reach-deal-to-avoid-us-ban-next-month/">Vance Says TikTok Will ‘Almost Certainly’ Reach Deal To Avoid U.S. Ban Next Month</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



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<p></p>


Trump Approves TikTok Takeover By Oracle And Walmart

Battle For TikTok: Amazon, AppLovin Join Oracle And These Others Vying To Buy It


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Nintendo will give a first detailed look at the highly anticipated successor to its best-selling video game console of all time—the Switch 2—on Wednesday, as the gaming industry braces for what could be one of the most successful system launches of all time.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>Nintendo offered a very&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/01/16/nintendo-says-highly-anticipated-switch-2-will-be-released-in-2025/">brief sneak peek</a>&nbsp;of the Switch 2 with a teaser video in January, showing off the design of the new console, which appears to be a supersized version of the Nintendo Switch, after a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/i-am-100-sure-they-are-really-mad-to-the-most-severe-level-ex-nintendo-pr-managers-react-to-switch-2-leaks" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">series of leaks</a>&nbsp;about the device.</p>



<p>The teaser also revealed what appeared to be a new entry into Nintendo’s successful Mario Kart racing game franchise, along with a basic look at the console’s new Joy Con controllers and dock to connect it to a TV.</p>



<p>Since the reveal, the company has been radio silent about the new console, and its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OqoRxXUjGA" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">recent announcements</a>&nbsp;have primarily focused on games coming to the now Switch 1 later this year.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-when-will-the-switch-2-event-take-place">When Will The Switch 2 Event Take Place?</h2>



<p>The Mario-maker will hold a “Nintendo Direct” keynote event to discuss the Nintendo Switch at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nintendo.com/successor/en-us/nintendo-direct/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">9 a.m. ET</a>&nbsp;on Wednesday, and the event will be streamed live on the company’s YouTube page and other social media handles.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-will-be-shown-at-the-switch-2-nintendo-direct-launch">What Will Be Shown At The Switch 2 Nintendo Direct Launch?</h2>



<p>On its website, the company says the keynote will offer a “closer look at Nintendo Switch 2,” without mentioning specific details about games or particular features. Based on Nintendo’s track record from previous Direct keynotes and console launches, the presentation will likely include trailers and demos of the new games that are set to release on the Switch 2 this year. The teaser event offered a glimpse at a new Mario Kart game, which is widely expected to be a successor to Mario Kart 8, which launched in 2014 first on the Nintendo Wii U before being migrated over to the Switch in 2017. Another long-anticipated game that is expected to be displayed on the Switch 2 is Metroid Prime 4: Beyond—the first new entry in the sci-fi shooter series since 2007. A trailer for the new Metroid game was shown off by Nintendo&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmwAhBxakw4" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">last week</a>&nbsp;as the game is expected to launch on both the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-do-we-know-about-other-popular-nintendo-games">What Do We Know About Other Popular Nintendo Games?</h2>



<p>Super Mario Odyssey, which launched in 2017 shortly after the Switch’s launch, is the most recent new 3D platformer to feature Nintendo’s main mascot. This has led to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eurogamer.net/with-switch-2-and-presumably-a-new-3d-mario-on-the-horizon-its-time-for-me-to-admit-super-mario-odyssey-always-felt-a-little-weird" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">speculation</a>&nbsp;the Switch 2 launch will likely coincide with the release of a new entry into Nintendo’s most hallowed franchise. If a new Mario is announced, it is unclear if it will be a direct sequel to Odyssey or a fresh take, an approach Nintendo usually takes with new consoles. Nintendo’s other flagship franchise, The Legend of Zelda, saw a new major release as recently as 2023 with the&nbsp;<a href="https://opencritic.com/game/14343/the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">critically acclaimed</a>&nbsp;Tears of the Kingdom, so a new entry is unlikely Wednesday. However, as it has done in the past, Nintendo could push a remastered or upgraded version of the game with better visuals for the more powerful Switch 2.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-do-we-know-about-nvidia-s-involvement-in-switch-2">What Do We Know About Nvidia’s Involvement In Switch 2?</h2>



<p>The original Switch was powered by a Tegra X1 mobile chip made by Nvidia. The Switch 2 will&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2023-inside-nvidias-latest-hardware-for-nintendo-what-is-the-t239-processor" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reportedly</a>&nbsp;also be powered by a new Nvidia mobile chip. The new chip will likely feature Nvidia’s new AI-based tools like Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), which uses artificial intelligence to upscale a game’s graphics. Beyond that,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2024-df-weekly-the-switch-2-hardware-leak-is-almost-certainly-real-so-what-have-we-learned" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reports</a>&nbsp;suggest the console will feature 12GB of memory—a step up from the Switch’s 4 GB—and a larger screen.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-much-will-the-switch-2-cost">How Much Will The Switch 2 Cost?</h2>



<p>Nintendo has not yet revealed the Switch 2’s price, but this is expected to be announced at the Nintendo Direct event on Wednesday.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-13/nintendo-switch-2-set-for-gaming-s-biggest-ever-launch-even-at-400-plus" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Analysts cited by Bloomberg</a>&nbsp;expect the console’s price to start at least $400, up from $299 for the original Switch. However, President Donald Trump’s tariffs could also impact prices. The Switch 2 will be the first console to launch since the president unveiled 20% tariffs on China, and his administration is set to announce a new round of sweeping reciprocal tariffs on “all countries” on Wednesday. Even if its price creeps over the $400 mark,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-13/nintendo-switch-2-set-for-gaming-s-biggest-ever-launch-even-at-400-plus" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">analysts believe</a>&nbsp;it is on track to be one of the most successful console launches of all time.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">Big Number</h2>



<p>150.86 million. That is the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/hard_soft/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">total number of Switch consoles</a>&nbsp;Nintendo has sold in its lifetime, making it the second-best-selling home console of all time, just&nbsp;<a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/playstation-history/2000-ps2-psp/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">behind Sony’s PlayStation 2</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-surprising-fact">Surprising Fact</h2>



<p>While Nintendo has made some of the best-selling consoles and games of all time, the company has a poor record when it comes to making “sequels” for its hardware. The Wii, which launched in 2006, was a smash hit for Nintendo and sold over 100 million units. Similarly, the Nintendo DS, which came out in 2004, is the best-selling portable or handheld console of all time, selling over 154 million units. The Wii’s follow-up, the Wii U, was a sales disaster for Nintendo as it sold only 13.56 million, making it the company’s worst-selling home console. The 3DS also fared worse compared to the DS, selling half as many units at 75 million.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/01/16/nintendo-says-highly-anticipated-switch-2-will-be-released-in-2025/">Nintendo Says Highly Anticipated Switch 2 Will Be Released In 2025</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-opinion-nintendo-switch-2-release-details-future-success/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">If the Switch 2 Stumbles, Nintendo Has No Plan B</a>&nbsp;(Bloomberg)</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://sync.graph.bluecava.com/ds.png?p=4cb3430d-9dfd-11ef-a5fe-4201ac100015&amp;segment=forbeseval" alt=""/></figure>



<p></p>


Pokémon European International Championship 2025

What To Know About The Switch 2 As Nintendo Readies Its First Console Launch In 8 Years


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Around 1,100 people reported issues with OpenAI’s ChatGPT just before 10 a.m. EDT on Monday morning suggesting a larger outage, according to tracking site&nbsp;<a href="https://downdetector.com/status/openai/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">DownDetector.com</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>Reports of issues with ChatGPT began to rise around 9:30 a.m. EDT and peaked at around 1,157 people just before 9:40 a.m., according to DownDetector.com.</p>



<p>Reports began to dip around 10 a.m., but rose again to just over 1,000 around 10:30 a.m.</p>



<p>The vast majority of issues reported, 93%, were with ChatGPT, though 6% of reports were about OpenAI’s website, according to Downdetector.</p>



<p>OpenAI’s&nbsp;<a href="https://status.openai.com/incidents/01JQP8238VGEYM9JN39NQ3P298" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">status page</a>&nbsp;said at 10 a.m. it was experiencing “increased error rates in ChatGPT” and they are investigating the issue, and at 10:54 a.m. the status page said OpenAI’s team was “working on implementing a mitigation.”</p>



<p>The&nbsp;<a href="https://status.openai.com/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">page</a>&nbsp;also says OpenAI has been having issues with new sign ups in certain geographies for one day in a bug affecting ChatGPT and other OpenAI products including Sora, Playground and Labs.</p>



<p><em>This story is developing and will be updated.</em></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">Big Number</h2>



<p>More than 300 million. That’s how many active weekly users Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/OpenAINewsroom/status/1864373399218475440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1864373399218475440%7Ctwgr%5Ed69b681560ac4c2ae02bda66f7709df2cfda3dde%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2024%2F12%2F4%2F24313097%2Fchatgpt-300-million-weekly-users" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>&nbsp;ChatGPT had in early December. The company also estimated more than 1 billion user messages were sent daily.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-is-chatgpt">What Is Chatgpt?</h2>



<p>ChatGPT is OpenAI’s&nbsp;<a href="https://openai.com/index/chatgpt/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">chatbot</a>&nbsp;model designed to operate in a “conversational way.” It was launched on Nov. 30, 2022 as a sibling to OpenAI’s InstructGPT, which was trained to follow instructions more than have a dialogue with users.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">Tangent</h2>



<p>OpenAI’s outages follow two notable tech outages last week. On Thursday,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2025/03/27/reddit-outage-thousands-of-users-report-issues-with-app-website/">Reddit</a>&nbsp;experienced an outage for a handful of hours that impacted more than 35,000 users before they were resolved. And, on Tuesday, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram both had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2025/03/25/users-report-outages-on-metas-facebook-and-instagram/">outage reports</a>&nbsp;spike on DownDetector.com, with more than 4,300 users reporting issues on Instagram, primarily with the app and comments, and nearly 1,000 users reporting issues with Facebook’s website and login.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2025/03/25/users-report-outages-on-metas-facebook-and-instagram/">Meta&#8217;s Facebook And Instagram Have Outages</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2025/03/27/reddit-outage-thousands-of-users-report-issues-with-app-website/">Reddit Outage: Thousands Of Users Report Issues With App, Website</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>


In this photo illustration, the ChatGPT (OpenAI) logo is

OpenAI, ChatGPT Outage Reported


<p>&#8220;This will be a defining year for AI,” said Mark Zuckerberg on his <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/pfbid0219ude255AKkmk4JAueXZeZ9zpjNYio2tBkd7bNmCaRbJ6iJaVVjypUgDg78CNdq5l" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Facebook blog</a> last month, hyping his plan to invest $65 billion in 2025, most of it in support of growing Meta’s AI capabilities and building upon its Llama 4 model.</p>



<p>The locus of these efforts appears to be on 2,250 acres of flat farmland in northeast Louisiana, where Meta has begun work on a $10 billion data center project. This grandest of Meta’s 20 worldwide data centers will be called Sucré (i.e. sweet) and cover 4 million square feet of floor space on 2,250 acres</p>



<p>To power racks lined with thousands of Nvidia H100 GPUs, Sucre will require 2.23 gigawatts of 24/7 electricity (enough to power more than 2 million homes), which utility company Entergy will provide via twin high-efficiency natural gas turbines at a capital cost of $3.2 billion. Meta’s plans also call for $250 million in related infrastructure spending, including roads and water systems. Construction jobs will peak at 5,000.</p>



<p>Is this really going to get built? And is it even a good idea, given recent revelations from DeepSeek that building advanced machine intelligence might be cheaper, and less energy-intensive than initially believed.</p>



<p>For some perspective I talked with Zach Krause, an analyst at energy consultancy&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eastdaley.com/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">East Daley Analytics</a>, in Denver, who tracks data center announcements and works on handicapping both their likelihood of getting built, and how developers expect to provide for their electricity demand. Krause says he has been encouraging his institutional investor clients (many natural gas and power generation investors among them) not to panic over the implications.</p>



<p>“We’ve seen a short-term overreaction by the market to new tech,” says Krause, who includes on his list 290 datacenter projects with a decent likelihood of getting built.</p>



<p>Even if AI energy efficiency improves exponentially, the silicon brains of the future will need all of those server farms, and then some. That’s because of a dynamic called the Jevons Paradox, named after English economist William Jevons, who in 1865 noticed that efficiency breakthroughs in steam engine design did not reduce coal consumption at all, but instead caused demand for the fuel to surge. Jevons Paradox has also been observed, for example, in explosive demand for modern conveniences like air conditioning, passenger airplanes, and MRI machines.</p>



<p>Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in late January&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/satyanadella/status/1883753899255046301" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">tweeted about the Jevons&nbsp;</a>paradox: “As AI gets more efficient and accessible, we will see its use skyrocket, turning it into a commodity we just can’t get enough of.” Analyst Hugh Wynne, at Power Research Group, concurs: “The demand for power to train and operate AI models could be materially reduced. However, if these efficiency gains also drive down the cost of AI, the adoption of AI-based services could be significantly faster and more widespread” — thus wiping out any expected energy savings.</p>



<p>Krause sees America’s tsunami of advanced data centers demanding an additional 81 gigawatts of electricity by 2030. That’s enough to power all of Texas today. If developers used natural gas to run them all it would take about 12.9 billion cubic feet per day, he figures — equal to 10% of national natural gas supplies. “The Meta project is circled in red ink for its eventual impact to the natural gas market,” he says, figuring that Sucre will require 360 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, the energy equivalent of about 60,000 barrels of oil.</p>



<p>And Sucré is not even the biggest. OpenAI is partnering with Oracle, Softbank, Microsoft and others on the Stargate project, which they say will be a $500 billion, multi-site datacenter expansion, beginning with Abilene, Texas. In time, Stargate will need more than 5 gigawatts of electricity, though Krause has only factored in a small fraction of that demand until they build something. Microsoft plans $80 billion of capital investment on AI and cloud computing this year. Meanwhile, Amazon has earmarked $100 billion for AI over the next decade, and may spend $35 billion just in northern Virginia’s datacenter alley. Jeff Bezos has also invested heavily in the development of advanced nuclear technology.</p>



<p>A trend to watch: Energy giant Chevron has partnered with gas turbine specialist G.E. Vernova to develop the power systems for 4 gigawatts of datacenters. Chevron, Exxon and the like already have deep expertise in generating power at their giant oil refineries. By siting datacenters adjacent to existing natural gas fields, they can help AI developers sidestep time-consuming permitting hoops that regulated utility companies and pipeline operators must jump through. Says Krause: “The utilities are slower to react, while the pipelines and gas producers are drooling on the other side.&#8221;</p>



<p>Zuckerberg managed to sidestep NIMBY issues in Louisiana, where politicians handed Meta fat tax incentives to build. Gov. Jeff Landry oddly declared that the hyperscale server farm “revitalizes one of our state’s beautiful rural areas.” Northern Louisiana is also long on natural gas, thanks to fracking in the Haynesville shale.</p>



<p>Meta, which has committed to achieving carbon neutrality in its operations, is already working to assuage the guilt of relying on carbon dioxide emitting natural gas to run Sucré. In December Meta announced a deal with billionaire Michael Polsky’s power developer&nbsp;<a href="https://invenergy.com/news/invenergy-to-provide-over-760mw-in-renewable-energy-supporting-meta-s-energy-needs-in-line-with-its-clean-and-renewable-energy-goals" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Invenergy to buy&nbsp;</a>the green attributes (known as renewable energy certificates) from the 760 megawatt capacity of four big solar farms under construction. And in Louisiana Meta has pledged to invest $1.5 billion alongside Entergy to build out more wind and solar.</p>



<p>Give it another 10 years and Meta will hopefully be able to retrofit the datacenter to run on zero-emissions advanced nuclear. Zuckerberg already looked in to building a datacenter adjacent to a nuclear power plant (<a href="https://www.popsci.com/environment/meta-nuclear-power-bee/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">rumored to be California’s Diablo Canyon&nbsp;</a>site) but was stymied by the discovery of an endangered bee species nearby.</p>



<p>It’s why Krause excludes from his datacenter list dozens of other projects more aspirational than real. “The upper bound is inflated. Some developers take a shotgun approach to permitting — they&#8217;re trying to get land rezoned by the multitudes.&#8221;</p>


Shot of a young female engineer using a digital tablet while working in a server room

The Trillion-Dollar A.I. Data Center Tsunami —Coming To A Field Near You


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Federal investigators are investigating claims suggesting Pfizer delayed announcing test results of its Covid vaccine until after the 2020 presidential election, the Wall Street Journal&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/pfizer-covid-vaccine-2020-election-probe-2f3ec247?mod=hp_lead_pos11" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>, bolstering a claim by President Donald Trump, who has said for years the company withheld vaccine results to impact his chances at reelection.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan is leading an investigation into claims by a scientist who used to work at Pfizer, who allegedly told colleagues and GSK that the company delayed announcing the success of its Covid vaccine until after the 2020 election, people familiar with the matter&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/pfizer-covid-vaccine-2020-election-probe-2f3ec247?mod=hp_lead_pos11" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">told</a>&nbsp;the Wall Street Journal.</p>



<p>The scientist, Phil Dormitzer, who no longer works at GSK, reportedly denies making the allegations.</p>



<p>An investigation into the disputed comments follows claims by Trump, who&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1325961445062938625" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">alleged</a>&nbsp;in a series of social media posts that Pfizer “didn’t have the courage” to announce details about the company’s Covid vaccine until after Election Day in 2020,&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1325962203346972678" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">suggesting</a>&nbsp;without evidence Pfizer “didn’t want to have me get a Vaccine WIN” before the election.</p>



<p>Investigators have interviewed at least two people in the probe, including a GSK executive who took notes of a conversation with Dormitzer, and prosecutors are expected to soon interview a third person, the Journal reported.</p>



<p>Neither Dormitzer nor Pfizer immediately responded to requests for comment, though Pfizer told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-prosecutors-probe-tip-about-timing-pfizers-covid-vaccine-wsj-reports-2025-03-26/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Reuters</a>&nbsp;in a statement the company has “consistently and transparently reiterated the facts and the timeline” of its vaccine, arguing, “Theories to the contrary are simply untrue.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-did-pfizer-delay-the-release-of-its-covid-vaccine">Did Pfizer Delay The Release Of Its Covid Vaccine?</h2>



<p>Both Pfizer and its biotech partner BioNTech have denied claims the companies delayed the release of their Covid vaccine. Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice president at Pfizer and head of the company’s vaccine research and development,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/fact-check-no-evidence-supports-trump-s-claim-covid-19-vaccine-result-was-suppressed" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">told</a>&nbsp;the American Association for the Advancement of Science shortly after the 2020 election that Pfizer’s vaccine development was “never about politics” and the company “had no time and still have no time to deal with politics.” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pfizer.com/news/announcements/open-letter-pfizer-chairman-and-ceo-albert-bourla?linkId=102134275" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">suggested</a>&nbsp;in October 2020 the company would know whether its vaccine was effective by the end of the month, though he noted federal guidelines would likely delay Pfizer’s request for an expedited public release until at least the third week of November 2020. Bourla previously projected trial results would come by late September 2020, but the timeline was delayed as the company increased the number of participants in its trial. Bourla&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-ceo-we-didnt-delay-vaccine-results-until-after-election-idUSKBN27X2N2/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>&nbsp;in November 2020 the company “didn’t conspire with anyone” to delay its trial result.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-has-trump-said-about-pfizer-s-covid-vaccine">What Has Trump Said About Pfizer’s Covid Vaccine?</h2>



<p>Trump has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/11/trump-angry-about-pfizer-vaccine/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">alleged</a>&nbsp;the Food and Drug Administration and Pfizer conspired with the so-called “medical deep state” to delay the release of Pfizer’s vaccine trial results until six days after Election Day in 2020. After the announcement, Trump requested the Department of Health and Human Services to “get to the bottom” of what happened with Pfizer’s alleged delay, the Washington Post&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/11/trump-angry-about-pfizer-vaccine/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>. He pushed his claims on Twitter, now known as X,&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1325961445062938625" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">writing</a>, “As I have long said, Pfizer and the others would only announce a vaccine after the election, because they didn’t have the courage to do it before.” Trump claimed the FDA “should have announced it earlier, not for political purposes, but for saving lives.” He later&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/ap-fact-check-trump-distorts-on-vaccine-state-distribution-76d1580f82b1586b207990396c1e3b5f" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">claimed</a>&nbsp;credit for Pfizer’s announcement and suggested the company denied having received financial support from the Trump administration. Though Pfizer never received direct federal funding to develop its vaccine, it did benefit from a nearly $2 billion advance order from the U.S. for 100 million doses.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>Pfizer and BioNTech&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-vaccine-candidate-against" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">announced</a>&nbsp;the results of their Covid vaccine on Nov. 9, 2020, six days after Election Day. Former President Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election just two days earlier, a result Trump and some of his allies decried amid false claims of widespread voter fraud. The companies said their vaccine was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing the spread of Covid in a late-stage trial, and the announcement did not indicate the vaccine would be immediately available to the public.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/pfizer-covid-vaccine-2020-election-probe-2f3ec247?mod=hp_lead_pos11" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">U.S. Prosecutors Probe Tip About Timing of Pfizer Vaccine</a>&nbsp;(<em>Wall Street Journal</em>)</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://sync.graph.bluecava.com/ds.png?p=4cb3430d-9dfd-11ef-a5fe-4201ac100015&amp;segment=forbeseval" alt=""/></figure>


Vaccinations at Egoli Township as Omicron Cases Spread

Did Pfizer Delay Covid Vaccine Announcement Until After 2020 Election? Here’s What We Know.


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>DeepSeek released an upgrade to its large language model this week, an update the company said featured “significant improvements” over its predecessor as the China-based startup appeared to escalate its rivalry with OpenAI and other U.S. artificial intelligence firms, after an earlier release rattled global tech stocks.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>DeepSeek&nbsp;<a href="https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3-0324" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">launched</a>&nbsp;an upgrade to its V3 large language model, DeepSeek-V3-0324, on the AI development platform Hugging Face on Tuesday, which the startup marketed as including improvements in reasoning and coding capabilities over its earlier V3 model.</p>



<p>DeepSeek’s V3 large language model was released on Dec. 26, 2024, and the company claimed it was three times faster than its V2 model as it&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2025/01/27/what-is-deepseek-new-chinese-ai-startup-rivals-openai-and-claims-its-far-cheaper/">ranked</a>&nbsp;among the top 10 in Chatbot Arena, a performance platform hosted by the University of California, Berkeley.</p>



<p>The latest update included “significant improvements” across several benchmark tests for the language model, DeepSeek said, in addition to upgrades to front-end web development, Chinese writing proficiency—with new features like “interactive rewriting,” according to the company—and Chinese search capabilities like “enhanced report analysis.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">What To Watch For</h2>



<p>Whether the latest DeepSeek model impacts U.S. tech stocks. Shares for Nvidia dropped by 1.2% as of 9:35 a.m. EDT, while other stocks like Broadcom (0.6%) and Tesla (0.3%) declined slightly. Apple (0.3%), Meta (0.7%) and Microsoft (0.3%) were up Tuesday morning.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-is-deepseek">What Is Deepseek?</h2>



<p>DeepSeek is an AI startup&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2025/01/27/what-is-deepseek-new-chinese-ai-startup-rivals-openai-and-claims-its-far-cheaper/">founded</a>&nbsp;by Chinese entrepreneur&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/01/28/who-is-behind-deepseek-heres-what-to-know-about-founder-liang-wenfeng/">Liang Wenfeng</a>&nbsp;in 2023. Liang started accumulating thousands of Nvidia graphics processors for an unnamed AI project in 2021, just before the Biden administration restricted trade of those chips to China. He called for China to “gradually transition” to being a contributor in the AI industry, “rather than continuing to ride on the coattails of others.” DeepSeek has claimed its products are more efficient and cost less to train and develop compared to similar products made by OpenAI and Meta. The company said training one of its latest models cost about $5.6 million, far less than the $100 million to $1 billion an AI executive&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/china-ai-deepseek-chatbot-6ac4ad33?mod=livecoverage_web" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">estimated</a>&nbsp;for costs to build a model.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-will-deepseek-be-banned-in-the-u-s">Will Deepseek Be Banned In The U.s.?</h2>



<p>A bipartisan bill&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/02/06/deepseek-should-be-banned-from-federal-devices-lawmakers-urge-after-ai-chatbot-linked-to-banned-chinese-firm/">banning</a>&nbsp;Deepseek from federal devices was introduced in February, after a report linked the company’s chatbot to a banned Chinese state-run telecommunications company. It’s not immediately clear whether the bill will be supported by other lawmakers. The Trump administration is also mulling a ban over national security concerns, a person familiar with the matter told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-likely-ban-chinese-app-deepseek-government-devices-wsj-reports-2025-03-07/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Reuters</a>. Some U.S. agencies have already restricted access to DeepSeek, including the U.S. Navy, the Defense Department, the Commerce Department and NASA, among others. The House’s Chief Administrative Officer&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/01/30/house-congress-bans-deepseek-ai" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reportedly</a>&nbsp;claimed “threat actors are already exploiting DeepSeek to deliver malicious software and infect devices,” as some congressional offices have been warned not to use DeepSeek.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>DeepSeek released its advanced reasoning model R1 in January, a move that appeared to put China in close competition with U.S. tech and AI giants like OpenAI and Meta. R1 achieved performance on par with OpenAI’s o1 model across several benchmarks and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/26/deepseek_r1_ai_cot/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reportedly</a>&nbsp;exceeded o1’s in the MATH-500 test. DeepSeek’s R1 model is available for anyone to access, use, study, modify and share, as the open-source model surged to the top of the iPhone download charts—surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT. R1’s release sparked&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2025/01/29/deepseek-panic-live-updates-nvidia-stock-drops-4-as-trump-reportedly-mulls-china-chip-sale-restrictions/">declines</a>&nbsp;across several U.S. tech stocks, led by Nvidia closing down 17% on Jan. 27. Nvidia’s dive cut $589 billion off its market cap, marking the largest single-day loss of value for any public company in history. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praised DeepSeek’s products and noted the R1 model was “impressive … particularly around what [DeepSeek is]able to deliver for the price.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2025/01/27/what-is-deepseek-new-chinese-ai-startup-rivals-openai-and-claims-its-far-cheaper/">What Is DeepSeek? New Chinese AI Startup Rivals OpenAI—And Claims It’s Far Cheaper</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>


Newly Launched Chinese AI App DeepSeek Causes U.S. Tech Stocks To Tumble, Amid Its Rapid Rise To #1 In Apple’s App Store

DeepSeek Launches AI Model Upgrade Amid OpenAI Rivalry—Here’s What To Know


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Social media platform X said the Turkish government has requested more than 700 accounts be blocked amid protests over the controversial arrest and jailing of Istanbul’s mayor—but X said it wouldn’t comply with the requests, even though some accounts <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/musks-x-suspends-opposition-accounts-turkey-protest-civil-unrest-erdogan-imamoglu-istanbul-mayor/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">say</a> they’ve been censored. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Key Facts</h2>



<p>In a&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1903879657755230507" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">statement</a>&nbsp;posted to X, the company’s global affairs team said it received multiple court orders from the Turkish Information and Communication Technologies Authority to block “over 700 accounts of news organizations, journalists, political figures, students, and others within Türkiye.”</p>



<p>The statement called the request “unlawful” and said it would hinder “millions of Turkish users from news and political discourse in their country,” adding, “X will always defend freedom of speech everywhere we operate.”</p>



<p>But, on Saturday, Politico Europe&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/musks-x-suspends-opposition-accounts-turkey-protest-civil-unrest-erdogan-imamoglu-istanbul-mayor/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;X had already suspended a number of accounts “belonging to opposition figures,” including activist Ömer Faruk Aslan, who said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/Omeraslanyedek/status/1903078542432240084" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">post</a>&nbsp;he made a new account after his former account “was blocked by a court order because the tweets exceeded 6 million views,” and news outlet Bianet, which&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/bianet_org/status/1904163241741426755" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>&nbsp;its account is censored.</p>



<p>Some of the accounts were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/musks-x-suspends-opposition-accounts-turkey-protest-civil-unrest-erdogan-imamoglu-istanbul-mayor/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reportedly</a>&nbsp;only suspended in Turkey and remained viewable to people in other countries.</p>



<p>Forbes has reached out to X for comment.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Why Is There Unrest In Turkey?</h2>



<p>Last week, authorities arrested Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and said he must face trial for corruption charges, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/turkey-mayor-jailed-istanbul-f962743f724f00a318f84ffaed7f58de" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">multiple</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/istanbul-mayor-turkey-imamoglu-erdogan-protests-chp-lira-rcna197737" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">outlets</a>. Istanbul’s mayor is accused of leading a criminal organization, overseeing bribery, supporting terrorism, and more, according to The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/world/europe/turkey-protests-istanbul-erdogan-imamoglu.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">New York Times</a>. Imamoglu, a member of the Republican People’s Party, is largely seen as the main political rival to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his jailing has been viewed as a political move. Hours after he was jailed, his party elected him as its presidential candidate in the next election, which is scheduled for 2028. From March 19 to Sunday, there have been more than 1,100 people detained, Ali Yerlikata, Turkey’s minister of the interior,&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/AliYerlikaya/status/1902974486317502527?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1902974486317502527%7Ctwgr%5Eb285711d5c5635484ed342d978ac41df9678d17d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftimesofindia.indiatimes.com%2Ftechnology%2Fsocial%2Felon-musk-owned-x-may-have-suspended-opposition-accounts-during-turkish-unrest%2Farticleshow%2F119417587.cms" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>&nbsp;on X, and the Times reported the protests that have followed have been the country’s largest in more than a decade.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Has X Had Issues With Turkey Before?</h2>



<p>Yes. In 2023, when Erdogan was up for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/turkey-election-president-recep-erdogan-runoff-kemal-kilicdaroglu-nato-rcna86052" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reelection</a>, then-Twitter’s global affairs team&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1657219168863756288" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>&nbsp;in a post it had “taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey” in response to the legal process and “to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey.” On his personal account, X owner Elon Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1657422401754259461" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">responded</a>&nbsp;to allegations of X not supporting free speech by saying, “The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What We Don’t Know</h2>



<p>Exactly how many accounts are being censored in Turkey. In an X post, Yerlikata&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/AliYerlikaya/status/1902974486317502527?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1902974486317502527%7Ctwgr%5Eb285711d5c5635484ed342d978ac41df9678d17d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftimesofindia.indiatimes.com%2Ftechnology%2Fsocial%2Felon-musk-owned-x-may-have-suspended-opposition-accounts-during-turkish-unrest%2Farticleshow%2F119417587.cms" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>&nbsp;authorities identified 326 accounts that were inciting crime, 72 of which were abroad. Yusuf Can, coordinator and analyst at the Wilson Center&#8217;s Middle East Program,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/musks-x-suspends-opposition-accounts-turkey-protest-civil-unrest-erdogan-imamoglu-istanbul-mayor/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">told Politico</a>&nbsp;over the weekend most of the accounts were “grassroots activists” and “university-associated activist accounts, basically sharing protest information, locations for students to go.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Big Number</h2>



<p>85.66%. That’s how many removal requests X complied with from Turkey in the back half of 2024, according to its&nbsp;<a href="https://transparency.x.com/content/dam/transparency-twitter/2025/x-global-transparency-report_h2_2024.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">global transparency report</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/musks-x-suspends-opposition-accounts-turkey-protest-civil-unrest-erdogan-imamoglu-istanbul-mayor/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Musk’s X suspends opposition accounts in Turkey amid civil unrest</a>&nbsp;(Politico Europe)</p>



<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/turkey-istanbul-mayor-protest-journalists-detained-erdogan-f6e803ab00ce86097aba78b3a94ef061" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Turkey detains journalists as protests grow over the jailing of key Erdogan rival</a>&nbsp;(Associated Press)</p>



<p><a href="https://fortune.com/europe/2025/03/24/turkey-block-x-accounts-unlawful-freedom-of-speech-elon-musk-opposition-mayor-istanbul/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Turkey to block over 700 X accounts—from news organizations, journalists, politicians and students. X calls the decision &#8216;unlawful&#8217; and vows to &#8216;always defend freedom of speech&#8217;</a>&nbsp;(Fortune)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/24/journalists-among-more-than-1100-arrested-in-turkey-crackdown-istanbul" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Journalists among more than 1,100 arrested in Turkey crackdown</a>&nbsp;(The Guardian)</p>


Social Media And Messenger Logos

What We Know About Reported X Bans In Turkey—As Musk’s Company Says It Won’t Comply With Government Requests


<p><strong>The streaming giant has been unable to disrupt the video game market, but armed with massive resources and time, its new push to level up could leave its competitors in the dust.</strong></p>



<p>“Netflix has won the streaming wars. Case closed,” analyst Robert Fishman wrote in a MoffettNathanson report published Monday on the streamer’s recent earnings update. “But where does the company go from here? How much more runway for growth is ahead?”</p>



<p>Since November 2021, Netflix, which recently passed 300 million subscribers globally, has been trying to convince users, investors and developers alike that one of the answers to that question can be video games.</p>



<p>And it’s put real money behind that conviction. By fall 2023, according to widely cited reports, Netflix had spent $1 billion on gaming, buying up four smaller development studios and building two of its own in California and Helsinki, Finland, and publishing dozens of titles for mobile devices, including tower defense game&nbsp;<em>Bloons TD</em>&nbsp;and graphic adventure&nbsp;<em>Oxenfree</em>.</p>



<p>Analysts believe the company likely spent another $1 billion on gaming in 2024 alone, increasing its offering to 140 games made available to anyone with a Netflix subscription, all without ads or in-app microtransactions.</p>



<p>Traction in the gaming marketplace has been harder to come by. Netflix’s portfolio of mobile apps have recorded 192 million total downloads, according to data provider Apptopia, and daily active user counts hover around 1.1 million, each fractional compared to mobile publisher competitors and even smaller in relation to Netflix’s overall subscriber base.</p>



<p>“We’re not yet the Netflix of games,” said Netflix president of games Alain Tascan on Wednesday, presenting at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. “But that’s exactly where we’re headed.”</p>



<p>Tascan is a newcomer to the streaming giant, having joined the company last July and replacing its original games chief Mike Verdu a few months later. Under his leadership, Netflix is rethinking its gaming strategy, moving out of direct competition with large game developers and into a more supplemental role for its primary streaming offering.</p>



<p>Moving forward, Netflix Games will focus on the development of more games that can be played inside the Netflix app on connected smart TVs, where 70% of Netflix viewership already happens, utilizing phones as the controller via a mobile app. The company also wants to create casual party games that can “replace family game night,” and make more offerings for younger children, which Tascan says make up 15% of Netflix’s linear entertainment viewing hours. And it wants to build more “interactive experiences” that can extend the life of Netflix’s IP from popular homegrown shows and movies, as it has done with&nbsp;<em>Squid Game&nbsp;</em>and&nbsp;<em>Too Hot To Handle.</em></p>



<p>That’s a far different strategy than the traditional idea of the “Netflix for games,” in which startups like Blacknut and Shadow, as well as tech giants such as Google (Stadia) and Apple (Arcade) and Microsoft (Xbox Game Pass), have built a cloud-based library of games that can be sold for a subscription. Google shut down Stadia in 2023, citing a lack of user interest. Apple and Microsoft have succeeded (on mobile and console, respectively), though primarily as a marketplace for third-party content rather than a home for original creations.</p>



<p>Netflix’s pivot also seems to remove it from the race to create the next blockbuster game like&nbsp;<em>Fortnite</em>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<em>Call of Duty: Warzone</em>, evidenced first in October by dozens of layoffs and the shuttering of its California studio, which was focused on bigger budget AAA game projects, before it had published a single title.</p>



<p>&#8220;[Netflix] shouldn&#8217;t be trying to be something they&#8217;re not,” says Jason Chapman, cofounder and managing partner of gaming venture fund Konvoy Ventures. ”They&#8217;re not a AAA content production house, but they should continue to lean into interactive.&#8221;</p>



<p>This evolution from linear, passive entertainment on Netflix to more interactive experiences makes a lot of sense, in theory. The $180 billion gaming industry now dwarfs the size of traditional Hollywood movies and television (estimated at $100 billion annually), and has become the preferred pastime for younger generations. As far back as 2019, Netflix co-CEO Ted Serandos cited&nbsp;<em>Fortnite</em>&nbsp;as its major competitor for user attention—no doubt one of the reasons the company hired Tascan, who worked previously as an executive at Epic Games on&nbsp;<em>Fortnite</em>.</p>



<p>However, Netflix’s early efforts at line-blurring interactive content—such as the headline-grabbing&nbsp;<em>Black Mirror: Bandersnatch</em>&nbsp;<em>—</em>did not catch on and in November the company announced it would be removing dozens of similar titles from its library entirely. (<em>Bandersnatch&nbsp;</em>is one of only four that remain.)</p>



<p>To date, Netflix has yet to create a game, or any game-like experience, that has captured and maintained the interest of the broader public over an extended time. Even&nbsp;<em>Squid Game: Unleashed</em>, which the company touts as one of its biggest success stories, hit six million downloads when it debuted in December, peaked at nearly 13 million downloads in January and then fell to 700,000 in February and just over 100,000 in March, according to Apptopia data. That game, notably, is the first not to require its players to have a Netflix subscription to play.</p>



<p>Netflix’s answer, in the short term, has been licensing. In December 2023, the company announced it would be offering three old&nbsp;<em>Grand Theft Auto&nbsp;</em>titles to anyone with a Netflix subscription, and to date,&nbsp;<em>GTA: San Andreas</em>&nbsp;has been its most downloaded and played game by far.</p>



<p>Internally, Netflix says it has its own set of criteria for games success, such as subscription acquisition and retention, and the ability to drive engagement back to its linear programming. With&nbsp;<em>Squid Game: Unleashed</em>, the developers experimented with a “watch along” feature that unlocked certain rewards for players who had viewed Seasons One and Two of the show.</p>



<p>&#8220;Those effects are relatively small currently, but frankly so was our investment in games relative to our overall content budget,” said Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters during the company’s earnings call in January. “And we&#8217;re going to stay disciplined about scaling that budget as we see continued scaling in member benefits.&#8221;</p>



<p>What Netflix Games has in its favor is the time and resources to experiment. The company grew its overall revenue by 16% in 2024, generating $10 billion in operating income and nearly $7 billion in free cash flow.</p>



<p>In MoffettNathanson’s recent analysis, it projected continued revenue growth, stronger margins and a higher stock price all without mentioning the gaming division once in the 26-page report.</p>



<p>&#8220;Do I think games are a core focus for them? Absolutely not,” says Chapman. “But this isn&#8217;t a throw away or a Hail Mary pass for them. They&#8217;ve put too much money into this.”</p>



<p>In the not-too-distant future, Chapman predicts Netflix will begin to implement monetization strategies such as in-app purchases and ads—drawing on lessons learned and infrastructure created by the company’s push into linear advertising in 2024—that would bring the viability of the games division into sharper focus. Until then, he says the company can afford to continue searching for its place in the market.</p>



<p>Tascan acknowledges that is a privileged position to be in amidst a games landscape that faced industry-wide layoffs, budget cuts and company closures in 2024. “I say sometimes to the team, ‘We have a golden ticket,’” he said. “What are we going to do with it?”</p>


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Can Netflix Become The Netflix Of Gaming?


<p><strong>The company known for its festive fruit baskets just launched a new website for hemp-derived, THC-infused beverages and gummies.</strong></p>



<p>Edible Brands, the parent company of the fruit basket outfit Edible Arrangements, is taking a bite of the cannabis industry.</p>



<p>The Georgia-based company, which had $500 million in annual sales last year, launched Edibles.com this week, an e-commerce site that sells hemp-derived THC products made by some of the biggest brands in the marijuana industry, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2023/06/01/nancy-whiteman-interview-wana-brands-cannabis-edibles-empire/">Wana</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/kiva-confections-kristi-and-scott-palmer/">Kiva</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2021/04/23/meet-cann-the-bestselling-cannabis-beverage-thats-coming-hard-at-hard-seltzer-ellen-degeneres-weed-drinks/">Cann</a>. Edible Brands is&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;selling marijuana, which is federally illegal, but is focusing on THC products derived from hemp,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2024/10/05/hemp-madness-why-the-government-is-waging-war-against-marijuanas-legal-cousin/">marijuana’s less potent and federally legal cannabis cousin</a>.</p>



<p>But these products are still strong enough to get customers stoned. “This is a really natural fit for us,” Edible Brands CEO Somia Farid Silber tells&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>. “We&#8217;re already called ‘edible’, right? We know that sometimes there’s even a little bit of an expectation from a customer for [cannabis] products.”</p>



<p>Edibles.com, which the company acquired last year, will launch in Texas first but will soon expand to Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina, and expects to go nationwide later this year. With its network of more than 700 Edible Arrangements stores, the company says customers can order online and get their cannabis products delivered to their door faster than an old school pot dealer.</p>



<p>“We have an incredible delivery network with our franchisees for fulfillment—we can reach 70% of U.S. households within an hour,” says Silber.</p>



<p>Because marijuana is still illegal at the federal level but hemp has enough THC to get someone high, some of the weed industry’s biggest players have started selling hemp products outside of dispensaries. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2024/04/19/the-cannabis-civil-war-hemp-vs-marijuana/">hemp and marijuana industry used to be at war</a>, but over the last year some of the biggest cannabis companies, from Curaleaf and Trulieve to Kiva and Wana, have embraced the federal legality of hemp-derived cannabinoids, thanks to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fda.gov/news-events/congressional-testimony/hemp-production-and-2018-farm-bill-07252019" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">2018 Farm Bill</a>, and started selling their own products.</p>



<p>The hemp products industry is even bigger than the marijuana sector, which has been throttled by a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2021/04/30/state-legal-cannabis-companies-pays-insane-tax-rates-thanks-to-a-minnesota-speed-dealer/">punitive federal tax code</a> for drug traffickers and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2022/08/02/how-america-botched-legalizing-cannabis-berner-cookies-kim-rivers-trulieve-steve-deangelo/?utm_campaign=socialflowForbesMainLI&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=ForbesMainLinkedIn">overregulation on the state level</a>. In 2023, hemp products sales hit $28 billion while marijuana sales topped $26 billion, according to <a href="https://www.whitneyeconomics.com/2023-us-national-cannabinoid-report" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Whitney Economics</a>.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<p>Joe Hodas, the CEO of Wana, one of the country’s best-selling edibles manufacturers, says he sees hemp as a way to expand to states that do not have recreational marijuana laws. Wana has also started selling its hemp-derived THC beverage line in Total Wine stores.</p>



<p>This is not the first time Edible Brands dipped into the cannabis space. In 2019, Edible Arrangements&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/21/business/edible-arrangements-cbd/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">launched its own CBD edibles line</a>, which are not psychoactive. But this pivot to THC is even more bold. And it’s a signal that cannabis products, especially edibles and beverages, have gone mainstream.</p>



<p>In 1999, Pakistani immigrant Tariq Farid launched the first Edible Arrangements store in Connecticut. Now based in Georgia, the company has become the go-to fruit basket gifting company by selling chocolate covered strawberries, cookies and bouquets of cut fruit for birthdays, anniversaries, funerals and other life milestones. In addition to its franchised stores across the U.S., Edible Brands also owns freshfuit.com and Roti, a fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant chain.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<p>Edible Brands is going headlong into the political battle over THC hemp products currently underway in Texas. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is leading a push to shutter the industry, which is composed of more than 8,000 hemp shops across the state. On Wednesday, the Texas Senate passed a bill&nbsp;<a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/19/texas-senate-hemp-ban-thc-dan-patrick/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">that would ban all products containing THC</a>, including gummies, vapes, flower, and beverages. The bill has not become law as the House still needs to vote on its proposal, which would regulate, not eliminate, the state’s hemp market. None of this is stopping Edible Brands.</p>



<p>The company is also building a flagship Edibles store in downtown Atlanta. The company will own the first few hemp products stores under this concept but will eventually open the model up to franchisees.</p>



<p>“We&#8217;re treating it like a bodega style [store],” says Thomas Winstanley, the executive vice president of Edibles.com. “We want to make it feel like it&#8217;s a regular consumer experience that&#8217;s elevated, that&#8217;s premium, and doesn&#8217;t feel like you&#8217;re walking into a smoke shop, or a gas station.”</p>



<p>When asked if Edible Brands is betting its future on cannabis, Silber, the founder’s daughter, is clear. “For us, this is just one of the pillars of our growth strategy,” she says. “It&#8217;s definitely not a make or break type of thing. We&#8217;re going to continue to diversify and grow this brand, just as we are with [our] other brands.”</p>


Chocolate CBD bites

Edible Arrangements Can Now Get You High—On Edibles


<p><strong>Will Trump’s tariffs and his assault on the federal government lead to a deeper crash, or even a recession? Market experts advise long-term investors and 401(k) holders to sit tight.</strong></p>



<p>W<strong>hile the last</strong>&nbsp;three weeks have been punishing for the stock market, veteran wealth managers are sounding a similar refrain for long-term investors: don’t panic.</p>



<p>It can be difficult advice to heed when alarming headlines are regularly flooding the news. Two days after the S&amp;P 500 index hit its all-time high on February 19, hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen made a prescient prediction that he wouldn’t be surprised to see a “significant correction” in the stock market, calling tariffs an additional tax. On Tuesday this week, JPMorgan economists raised their recession risk forecast for this year to 40% from 30%. The S&amp;P 500 is down 9% from its high and seems destined to fall further.</p>



<p>But history suggests changes in sentiment often happen much faster than investors expect. Just last year, when stocks fell 8.5% over three weeks in July and August, those losses were erased within a month. The same is true of the S&amp;P 500’s last 10% correction, which took place from July to October 2023.</p>



<p>In fact, Dave Donabedian, co-chief investment officer of CIBC Private Wealth U.S., which manages $84 billion in assets, says his firm researched “true crises” far more consequential than the current self-inflicted declines fueled by tariffs—shocks to the system like outbreaks of war or the onset of Covid-19.</p>



<p>“What you find is that about two-thirds of the time, the S&amp;P 500 has recovered all that it lost after the shock in a month,” says Donabedian. “The punch line is don’t do knee-jerk selling, and we’ve certainly had some of those conversations in the last week or so.”</p>



<p>The primary culprit for the current stock market swoon is the uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on imports from China, Canada and Mexico. Trump initially announced the tariffs over the weekend prior to February 3, but when the market opened that day down 2%, he changed course and granted Mexico and Canada a temporary 30-day reprieve following concessions they made to secure their borders with the U.S. Stocks quickly rebounded.</p>



<p>That pause expired with Trump allowing the tariffs to take effect on March 4, but he soon carved out exemptions for some goods subject to a trade agreement he signed during his first term. Since then, investors have become increasingly dismayed at Trump’s uncharacteristic indifference to the stock market—last Thursday, he told reporters he’s “not even looking at the market.” This week, he walked back a threat to hike tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum imports to 50%, but added a 25% charge on those metals shipped from any foreign country, leading to retaliatory tariffs imposed by the European Union on U.S. imports. The whipsawing is only adding to investors’ uneasiness.</p>



<p>“We knew tariffs were negative for economies, but it’s less the impact of the tariffs themselves than the uncertainty of the policy,” says Adrian Helfert, chief investment officer for alternative and multi-asset portfolios at Westwood. “Small and mid-sized businesses need to know what to expect so they can plan their capital expenditures. Uncertainty leads to businesses that are nervous to plan for a future that they don’t know.”</p>



<p>More clarity shouldn’t be particularly hard to provide, and while Donabedian contends it would be “foolish” to make a short-term prediction about whether the next piece of news is better or worse for investors, the perceived risk of the tariffs could peak within the next couple of months. “Our view is still that we get a year of slow growth, but not a recession,” he says.</p>



<p>And there’s reason for optimism elsewhere in the economy. Inflation eased to 2.8% in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday, slightly lower than consensus expectations, which improved hopes that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this year. The S&amp;P 500 crawled 0.5% higher yesterday, resisting the downward trend and signaling that a broader rebound could be on tap if the tariff issue gets resolved.</p>



<p>The top-performing S&amp;P sector Wednesday was information technology, which gained 1.6% despite being one of the index’s largest laggards of the year, illustrating how quickly trends can reverse. Selling off parts of portfolios that look precarious could backfire if news changes quickly.</p>



<p>“For your average retail investor, the temptation is to say ‘I&#8217;ve got to do something’ during times like this, when the reality is, if you&#8217;re a long term investor, often your best decision is to stay out of your own way,” says Jim Baird, chief investment officer at Plante Moran Financial Advisors. “Unfortunately in this country, we&#8217;ve got far more people that aren&#8217;t saving enough or investing enough in preparation for their retirement than those that are over-saving or over-investing.”</p>



<p>Some strategists even see this as a time to buy into parts of the market that have underperformed if investors do have extra cash. The Russell 2000 index tracking small-cap stocks is down 17% from its post-election high and has hardly budged since the end of 2020, while large caps have enjoyed stronger gains for the last two years.</p>



<p>“If somebody were all in on the S&amp;P 500, I might counsel a little more diversification there, to maybe look at some things in the small- and mid-cap space or look at international, which has finally started to outperform the U.S.,” says Donabedian. Since Trump took office in January, Chinese stocks as measured by MSCI China are up 22%, and MSCI Europe has gained 9%. The S&amp;P 500 is down nearly 7% over the same period. Says Donabedian, “It’s an opportunity to pick some spots in the equity markets that have underperformed for a number of years.”</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://sync.graph.bluecava.com/ds.png?p=4cb3430d-9dfd-11ef-a5fe-4201ac100015&amp;segment=forbeseval" alt=""/></figure>


Markets Continue Volatile Week As President Trump Changes Tariffs

Calming Advice For A Chaotic Stock Market


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Even the world’s richest man has bad days, as Elon Musk faced a litany of headaches to start the week Monday—including the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/03/10/x-outage-thousands-report-issues-with-elon-musks-platform/">crash</a>&nbsp;of his social media site, an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2025/03/10/tesla-stocks-election-rally-is-all-gone-erasing-91-gain/">11-figure drop</a>&nbsp;in his net worth as his primary venture Tesla faced brutal losses, while an awkward TV interview only gave critics more fodder.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-timeline">Timeline</h2>



<p>March 10, 8:54 a.m. EDTMusk’s Monday gets off to an immediate bad start as users on his X platform&nbsp;<a href="https://downdetector.com/status/twitter/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">begin</a>&nbsp;to report widespread outages, with Musk later&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/03/10/x-outage-thousands-report-issues-with-elon-musks-platform/">attributing</a>&nbsp;the crash to a “massive cyberattack” from “a large, coordinated group and/or a country” and noting the problem emanated from “IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area” (cybersecurity expert Cliff Steinhauer&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/03/10/x-outage-thousands-report-issues-with-elon-musks-platform/">told</a>&nbsp;Forbes it was likely too early to determine the root of the issue).</p>



<p>March 10, 9:42 a.m.Musk shockingly&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1899093526190698784" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">calls</a>&nbsp;veteran and retired astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a “traitor” after Kelly posted support for Ukraine following a visit to the country,&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/SenDuckworth/status/1899206544907981264" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">leading&nbsp;</a><a href="https://x.com/SenRubenGallego/status/1899206416641970357" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">a slew</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/SenWarren/status/1899206461462352342" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">of Democrats—</a>including Kelly’s wife&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/GabbyGiffords/status/1899172428032463302" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Gabby Giffords</a>—and even one House Republican, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., to criticize him, with Bacon&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/mkraju/status/1899248385233690883" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">telling</a>&nbsp;CNN Musk’s accusation was “not right” and “reflects bad on the White House” (on Musk’s own platform, his “traitor” comment received only 15,000 Likes by Tuesday morning compared to over 230,000 likes for&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/SenMarkKelly/status/1899155561171558505" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Kelly’s response</a>).</p>



<p>March 10, 3:45 p.m.Left-leaning watchdog organization Media Matters, a longtime Musk target,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/03/10/nx-s1-5323844/media-matters-elon-musk-new-lawsuit" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">sues</a>&nbsp;X for bringing lawsuits against it in foreign countries as part of &#8220;a vendetta-driven campaign of libel tourism,” the suit alleged.</p>



<p>March 10, 4 p.m.<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2025/03/10/tesla-stocks-election-rally-is-all-gone-erasing-91-gain/">Tesla</a>, the primary source of Musk’s wealth, ends Monday trading down more than 15%, its worst daily loss since September, as the electric vehicle maker became the most notable loser of the Wall Street losses tied to shaky investor sentiment amid President Donald Trump’s tariffs—Tesla stock closed more than 10% lower than it did prior to Trump’s election, wiping out what was once a more than 90% rally, and shares declined over 50% in less than three months.</p>



<p>March 10, 4:30 p.m.Musk sits down with Fox Business’ “Kudlow” and does little to assuage Tesla investor angst,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/03/10/elon-musk-says-hes-running-his-companies-with-great-difficulty-as-tesla-shares-plummet/">saying</a>—in a halting way that went viral on social media— that he’s juggling his Department of Government Efficiency role with his positions at Tesla and his other companies “with great difficulty” and invokes Monty Python, adding to “always look on the bright side of life.&#8221;</p>



<p>March 10, 4:56 p.m.Responding to a thread on Monday being the seventh-worst day in Tesla stock’s 15-year history, Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1899202765781450951" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">writes</a>, “It will be fine long-term.”</p>



<p>March 10, 10:13 p.m.A federal judge&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/03/11/federal-judge-rules-doge-must-disclose-records-about-its-operation-to-comply-with-federal-transparency-law/">rules</a>&nbsp;against DOGE for operating with “unprecedented power” and “unusual secrecy,” ordering Musk’s agency to comply with public record requests and increase its transparency.</p>



<p>March 10, 10:18 p.m.Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1899283682851975342" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">replies</a>&nbsp;the “antibody reaction is strong” to a post suggesting Musk “will be blamed for everything,” including the “incoming&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2025/03/08/are-we-suddenly-close-to-a-recession-heres-what-the-data-actually-shows/">recession</a>.”</p>



<p>March 11, 12:14 a.m.Musk’s boss<strong>&nbsp;</strong>Trump chimes in to support Musk after his bad Monday,&nbsp;<a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114141854575248527" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">writing</a>&nbsp;on his Truth Social site he will buy a Tesla “as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American.”</p>



<p>March 11, 8:22 a.m.Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, long one of the most outspoken voices on Wall Street in Musk’s and Tesla’s corner, publishes a critical note on Musk, saying patience is “wearing very thin” and Musk “needs to step up as Tesla CEO at this critical juncture” as there’s been “little to no sign of Musk” at any Tesla facility since Trump took office.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">Big Number</h2>



<p>$22.8 billion. That’s how much Musk lost off his net worth during Tesla’s Monday nosedive, according to our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?list=rtb/">estimates</a>. That’s more than the entire $22.7 billion fortune held by media mogul Rupert Murdoch.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forbes-valuation">Forbes Valuation</h2>



<p>Musk’s $325 billion net worth still makes him by far the wealthiest person in the world with a $110 billion lead over the next richest man, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($215 billion net worth).</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">Crucial Quote</h2>



<p>“The Musk DOGE distractions” have “created a black cloud over Tesla&#8217;s stock” according to Ives.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tesla-stock-bounces-back-some-tuesday">Tesla Stock Bounces Back Some Tuesday</h2>



<p>Shares of Tesla gained as much as 6% Tuesday morning, bouncing off of their lowest close since October, before settling into a 1% advance by 11 a.m. EDT, as the market broadly dropped on Trump’s&nbsp;<a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114144217763824399" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">decision</a>&nbsp;to increase tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel imports to 50%. Tesla’s 2025 losses are staggering, as its nearly 45% year-to-date decline makes it the worst-performing company listed on the S&amp;P 500, according to FactSet data.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2025/03/10/why-tesla-isnt-the-ai-powerhouse-musk-says-it-is/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ForbesWhy Tesla Isn’t The AI Powerhouse Musk Says It Is<small>By&nbsp;Alan Ohnsman</small></a></p>


President Trump Returns To White House From Florida

A Timeline Of Elon Musk’s Terrible 24 Hours—A Dark Day For X, Tesla And More


<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Topline</h2>



<p>Ukraine has agreed to an immediate, 30-day ceasefire proposal brokered by the United States, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/spilna-zayava-za-pidsumkami-zustrichi-delegacij-ukrayini-ta-96553" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">joint statement</a>&nbsp;from the two countries, though Russia has yet to accept the deal as it continues its three-year invasion of Ukraine.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>The ceasefire can be extended if Ukraine and Russia agree to additional terms, the statement said, noting Russia has not yet accepted the ceasefire deal.</p>



<p>The U.S. will immediately remove its pause on intelligence sharing and security assistance for Ukraine, according to the statement, about a week after the White House suspended intelligence that primarily aided Ukrainian attacks within Russian territory.</p>



<p>Secretary of State Marco Rubio&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/ABC/status/1899528838717043133" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">told reporters</a>&nbsp;Tuesday after peace talks with Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia “we’ll take this offer now to the Russians and we hope that they’ll say yes… the ball is now in their court.”</p>



<p>The U.S. and Ukraine also agreed to quickly reach an agreement on a mineral deal that was stalled last month after President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy engaged in a widely broadcast&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2025/02/28/trump-zelenskyy-vance-face-off-in-oval-office-shouting-match-heres-everything-they-said/">argument in the Oval Office</a>&nbsp;that soured diplomatic relations and led to the Trump administration’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2025/03/04/zelenskyy-wants-to-make-things-right-as-us-cuts-off-assistance/">pause on military aid</a>&nbsp;for Ukraine.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-we-don-t-know">What We Don’t Know</h2>



<p>The specific terms of the ceasefire and what concessions, if any, Ukraine or Russia will have to make for the deal to go through. Zelenskyy has said Ukraine needs to be in a “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/02/28/zelenskyy-stands-his-ground-in-first-interview-since-fiery-trump-meeting-not-sure-that-we-did-something-bad/?ctpv=xlrecirc">strong position</a>” within a peace deal and that lasting security guarantees are needed.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chief-critic">Chief Critic</h2>



<p>Former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton told&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/AmbJohnBolton/status/1899227444776743288" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">CBC News Network</a>&nbsp;on Tuesday that it is a “big mistake to insist that Ukraine agree to a ceasefire,” warning that a ceasefire along the frontlines could turn into the new Russian-Ukrainian border. “The result will be that Russia’s aggression will have been vindicated,” he said. Russia has control of eastern Ukrainian cities such as Melitipol, Mariupol, Donetsk, Bakhmut and Luhansk, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">BBC</a>, which noted a smaller Russian offensive has taken shape in northern Ukraine as well.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>Relations between the Trump administration and Zelenskyy have been rocky in the leadup to the ceasefire proposal. Trump began trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia last month, with his administration holding talks with the latter country without any Ukrainian delegates present. Zelenskyy said Ukraine would not accept a peace deal created without Ukrainian participation, also alleging Trump had fallen for Russian disinformation as the U.S. president called him a “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2025/02/19/trump-zelensky-feud-trump-calls-zelensky-a-dictator--after-ukraines-president-criticizes-him-amid-russia-talks/">dictator</a>” who “has done a terrible job” handling Russia’s invasion. Trump and Zelenskyy verbally sparred in the Oval Office late last month, when the two were prepared to come to the table to sign a mineral deal that would allocate proceeds from Ukraine’s mineral resources to a joint fund with the U.S. as a means of providing the U.S. payback for the billions in military support it has provided Ukraine in the last few years. Tensions between Trump and Zelenskyy have slightly eased in recent days, with the Ukrainian president saying “it is time&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2025/03/04/zelenskyy-wants-to-make-things-right-as-us-cuts-off-assistance/">to make things right</a>” after the U.S. pulled military support from Ukraine and Trump remaining optimistic a peace deal could still be completed.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2025/03/04/zelenskyy-wants-to-make-things-right-as-us-cuts-off-assistance/">Zelenskyy Wants To ‘Make Things Right’ As U.S. Cuts Off Assistance</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



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<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/02/28/zelenskyy-stands-his-ground-in-first-interview-since-fiery-trump-meeting-not-sure-that-we-did-something-bad/?ctpv=xlrecirc">Zelenskyy Stands His Ground In First Interview Since Fiery Trump Meeting: &#8216;Not Sure That We Did Something Bad&#8217;&nbsp;</a>(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2025/02/28/trump-zelenskyy-vance-face-off-in-oval-office-shouting-match-heres-everything-they-said/">Trump, Zelenskyy, Vance Face Off In Oval Office Shouting Match—Here’s Everything They Said&nbsp;</a>(Forbes)</p>


EU Leaders Emergency Summit On Defense And Ukraine

Ukraine Agrees To 30-Day Ceasefire Proposal—But Russia Hasn’t Accepted Yet


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—which falls under the purview of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—is planning to study potential connections between vaccines and autism,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-cdc-plans-study-into-vaccines-autism-sources-say-2025-03-07/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Reuters</a>&nbsp;reported Friday, a link Kennedy has controversially pushed in the past.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>Two unnamed sources familiar with the matter told Reuters of the planned study, though it was unclear whether Kennedy, a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/02/13/rfk-jrs-health-secretary-confirmation-live-updates-senate-confirms-trumps-pick-mcconnell-votes-no/">known-vaccine skeptic</a>&nbsp;who has pushed the conspiracy that autism is linked to vaccination, is involved.</p>



<p>The CDC’s page on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/autism/faq/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">frequently asked questions</a>&nbsp;about autism—which was last updated on Nov. 5, 2024—states that, “to date, the studies continue to show that vaccines are not associated with” autism spectrum disorder.</p>



<p>There have been a&nbsp;<a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5789217/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">number</a><a href="https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/autism-vaccine-link-debunked" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">&nbsp;of scientific</a><a href="https://autismsciencefoundation.org/autism-and-vaccines/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">&nbsp;studies</a>&nbsp;done in the past that have shown no connection between vaccination and autism, but 20 years ago, Kennedy emerged as the most prominent figure pushing the conspiracy.</p>



<p>Forbes has reached out to the CDC for comment.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-has-kennedy-said-about-vaccines">What Has Kennedy Said About Vaccines?</h2>



<p>Kennedy’s stance that vaccines may cause autism, along with his other stances on the safety of various&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2024/11/06/heres-what-an-rfk-jr-health-role-in-a-trump-administration-could-look-like-vaccine-skepticism-fluoride-ban/">vaccinations</a>, has been slammed by health experts and organizations who argue he is spreading long-discredited theories. Kennedy was among the most well-known public figures spreading the theory for years: In 2005, he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2023/08/scicheck-what-rfk-jr-gets-wrong-about-autism/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">published</a>&nbsp;a later-retracted article claiming a preservative used to prevent vaccine vial contamination was tied to childhood neurological disorders—a theory that CDC experts have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safety/about/thimerosal.html#:~:text=Does%20thimerosal%20cause%20autism%3F,link%20between%20thimerosal%20and%20autism." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">long rejected</a>. He also cites a decades-old CDC study when alleging vaccines are tied to autism, despite one of the authors of the study saying it gave no conclusion on a potential connection, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2023/08/scicheck-what-rfk-jr-gets-wrong-about-autism/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">FactCheck.org</a>. Kennedy has also falsely stated as recently as last year that there are no adults “with full-blown autism,” repeating that belief when he appeared on Joe Rogan’s&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/3DQfcTY4viyXsIXQ89NXvg" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">podcast</a>&nbsp;last summer. His claims were questioned heavily by lawmakers during his confirmation hearings. During the hearings, Kennedy said he was not “anti-vaccine” but is “pro-safety,” though he&nbsp;<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/rfk-jr-questioned-rising-autism-rates-experts-gets/story?id=118648320" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">refused</a>&nbsp;to say there is no link between autism and vaccines. In October, before he was appointed to lead HHS, Kennedy said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1845995741833011374" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">post on X</a>&nbsp;he is “not going to take anyone&#8217;s vaccines away from them. I just want to be sure every American knows the safety profile, the risk profile, and the efficacy of each vaccine.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-has-trump-said-about-autism-and-vaccines">What Has Trump Said About Autism And Vaccines?</h2>



<p>Since being elected, Trump has discussed the rise in autism rates—which many experts believe is linked to more frequent diagnoses—and said in a post on&nbsp;<a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113946130240319294" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Truth Social</a>&nbsp;“something’s really wrong. We need BOBBY!!!” referring to Kennedy. In his joint address to Congress on Tuesday, Trump cited the rise in autism in children and said, “we’re going to find out what it is, and there’s nobody better than Bobby and all of the people that are working with you.” In 2014, Trump weighed in more specifically on the conspiracy that vaccines cause autism, saying in a&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/449525268529815552?lang=en" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">post on X</a>: “Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn&#8217;t feel good and changes &#8211; AUTISM. Many such cases!”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-have-autism-rates-been-increasing">Have Autism Rates Been Increasing?</h2>



<p>Yes, autism diagnoses have been on the rise. The CDC reported in 2020 that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/ss/ss7202a1.htm?s_cid=ss7202a1_e&amp;ACSTrackingID=USCDC_921-DM101985&amp;ACSTrackingLabel=This%20Week%20in%20MMWR%20-%20Vol.%2072%2C%20March%2024%2C%202023&amp;deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM101985" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">1 in 36</a>&nbsp;children were diagnosed with autism, an increase from from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/autism/data-research/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">1 in 150</a>&nbsp;two decades earlier. Researchers maintain there are no trusted scientific studies that show a connection between vaccines and autism, and the&nbsp;<a href="https://beta.cdc.gov/vaccine-safety/about/autism.html#cdc_vaccine_special_topics_cause_impact-vaccines-do-not-cause-autism" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">CDC says</a>&nbsp;there have been nine agency-funded or conducted studies that have shown no link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism. Rather, researchers say the increase can be attributed to things including more awareness, more parents having children at a later age and increased risk factors like exposure to toxic chemicals and viral infections during pregnancy, The New York Times&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/health/what-causes-autism.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-where-did-the-theory-that-vaccines-cause-autism-originate">Where Did The Theory That Vaccines Cause Autism Originate?</h2>



<p>A since-retracted 1998 medical study from Andrew Wakefield hypothesized there could be a connection between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the development of autism. The paper was discredited by health experts, retracted and Wakefield lost his medical license for acting “dishonestly and irresponsibly” while conducting research,&nbsp;<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/rfk-jr-questioned-rising-autism-rates-experts-gets/story?id=118648320" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">ABC News</a>&nbsp;reported.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">Tangent</h2>



<p>On Wednesday, Trump’s pick to lead the National Institutes of Health indicated he was open to funding new studies looking into potential links between vaccines and autism. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya&nbsp;<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2025/03/05/trump-nih-nominee-jay-bhattacharya-confirmation-research-on-vaccines-autism/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>&nbsp;in his confirmation hearing that he’s “convinced” there is not a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, but would “support a broad scientific agenda based on data to get an answer” to why the rate of children being diagnosed with autism is increasing.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-cdc-plans-study-into-vaccines-autism-sources-say-2025-03-07/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Exclusive: US CDC plans study into vaccines and autism, sources say</a>&nbsp;(Reuters)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/02/13/rfk-jrs-health-secretary-confirmation-live-updates-senate-confirms-trumps-pick-mcconnell-votes-no/">RFK Jr. Live Updates: Senate Confirms Trump’s HHS Pick—McConnell Votes ‘No’</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2024/11/06/heres-what-an-rfk-jr-health-role-in-a-trump-administration-could-look-like-vaccine-skepticism-fluoride-ban/">Here’s What An RFK Jr. Health Role In A Trump Administration Could Look Like: Vaccine Skepticism, Fluoride Ban</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.statnews.com/2025/03/05/trump-nih-nominee-jay-bhattacharya-confirmation-research-on-vaccines-autism/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NIH nominee is &#8216;convinced&#8217; vaccines don&#8217;t cause autism, but won&#8217;t rule out more studies on the issue</a> (Stat News)</p>


Author: Forbes

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA