Good morning. Andrew here. And so we wait to find out whether President Trump will follow through on his pledge to bomb Iran’s bridges and power plants if no deal is reached by his looming deadline. The outcome could have far-reaching implications on the global economy. We’ve got the latest below. We’re also looking at rapidly growing security costs for C.E.O.s, per new regulatory filings. And OpenAI’s embrace of retail investors in its latest fund-raising round could signal the beginning of a new trend. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)
“A deal that’s acceptable to me”President Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran since the war in the Middle East began, only to largely back down. But with another deadline just hours away, investors seem to be bracing for him to follow through this time. Global markets are under pressure today as Trump demands that Tehran end its effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway for oil and natural gas, by 8 p.m. Eastern, or the country’s infrastructure would be eventually “decimated.” “We have to have a deal that’s acceptable to me,” Trump said yesterday, even as his tone has grown more belligerent in recent days. Iran has put forward a 10-point proposal according to Iranian state media, and threatened retaliation if Trump followed through with his threatened attacks. The latest:
The war’s effect on inflation could come into greater focus. Economists predict the headline figure for the Consumer Price Index, a report set to be released on Friday, will rise 1 percent, the biggest monthly gain since 2022. Among the probable culprits: higher energy, food and airfare. Surging prices could scramble the Fed’s rates outlook. Since the war began on Feb. 28, traders have increasingly bet on zero rate cuts this year, down from roughly two. That is partly due to an improving labor market, but also because of inflation. Beth Hammack, the president of the Cleveland Fed, told The Associated Press yesterday that she “could see where we might need to raise rates if inflation stays persistently above our target.” That would most likely infuriate Trump, who has long pushed for far lower borrowing costs. A deeply divided Fed could put Kevin Warsh, the president’s pick to lead the central bank, in a bind if he eventually gets Senate confirmation. Could the mounting risks drive Trump to de-escalate once more? Throughout the war, markets have shown a “bias to optimism,” Paul Donovan, the chief economist for UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote to investors this morning. As Trump’s threats escalate, that view is being challenged, he added.
Artemis II astronauts begin the long journey home. The crew of NASA’s lunar flyby mission has officially gone farther from Earth than any humans in history, as its four astronauts slipped behind the moon, more than a quarter-million miles from Earth. (Crew members studied the moon’s surface, observed a solar eclipse and took a stunning picture of the Orientale basin.) Splashdown is expected later this week; NASA hopes to land astronauts near the moon’s south pole as soon as 2028. Bill Ackman bids for Universal Music Group. Shares in the record label, the home to Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny, soared in Amsterdam today after Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management offered to buy the company at a $64 billion valuation. The deal would move Universal Music’s stock listing to the U.S. from Europe, but would seek to keep Lucian Grainge as the label’s C.E.O. A.I. giants reportedly team up to fend off copycats. OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are collaborating to defend their models from rivals, especially Chinese ones, seeking to closely imitate parts of their A.I. models, Bloomberg reports. Elsewhere, Anthropic said it was on pace to book more than $30 billion in revenue, up from $9 billion at the end of last year, and it is reportedly in talks to invest $200 million in a joint venture with private equity firms. Who’s afraid of private credit?For many of the biggest players in private credit, the pain keeps coming. But even as banking chiefs like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase warn that the industry still faces trouble, other Wall Street institutions are seeking to dive into the business. Shares in Blue Owl Capital closed at a record low yesterday, hitting $8.45, as investors’ worries about the embattled firm grow. Remember that last week, Blue Owl disclosed that it was limiting withdrawals from two of its funds amid a wave of requests from investors. Many observers say the near-term future of many private credit players remains bleak. In his letter to shareholders published yesterday, Dimon warned that “credit standards have been modestly weakening pretty much across the board.” But others aren’t shying away from the sector. A $15.7 billion fund run by Goldman Sachs, which relied less on money from individual retail investors than the likes of Blue Owl, said that it would benefit as competitors find themselves on their back heels, according to Bloomberg. And Morgan Stanley said it was raising money for a new so-called interval fund that will predominantly invest in private credit. It’s not the only firm doing that: JPMorgan is creating a similar fund. To be clear, the private credit crisis has even dinged those banks. The Goldman fund disclosed that investors had sought to withdraw just under 5 percent of its assets — 4.999 percent, to be more specific — in the first quarter. (The funds’ managers called that a win, according to Bloomberg.) And a separate Morgan Stanley fund reported sharply limiting withdrawal requests last month. Still, some of the new funds are suggesting that they won’t crack down as hard on investor redemption requests as firms like Blue Owl have. The JPMorgan interval fund is also seeking permission to let investors withdraw at least 2 percent of their cash every month. The rising cost of keeping C.E.O.s safeIn the year-plus since UnitedHealthcare’s C.E.O., Brian Thompson, was killed on a Midtown Manhattan sidewalk, large companies have, understandably, put a new emphasis on security. The current crop of proxy statements, which are for 2025, the first full year after Thompson’s death, show that many large companies increased spending to protect their C.E.O.s and other top executives, Michelle Leder, the founder of Footnoted, which digs through filings to the S.E.C., reports for DealBook. Data from Equilar, an executive data firm, shows that 38 percent of S&P 500 companies paid for security services for their executives in 2025, up from 24 percent four years earlier. The median cost of providing the service increased more than 136 percent over the same span, to $130,468. JPMorgan Chase disclosed yesterday that it spent $1.2 million last year on security for its chairman and C.E.O., Jamie Dimon, up from $882,000 in 2024. The increase was due to some charges from late 2024 that weren’t paid until early 2025, a spokesman for the company, Michael Fusco, said. American Express, which filed its proxy on March 25, disclosed spending $3.5 million in 2025 to provide security to its C.E.O., Stephen Squeri, with “home security and protection services,” a more than tenfold increase from 2024. In its recent filing, the company described this as “reflective of enhanced security measures due to the broader security environment.” This isn’t happening at every company. CVS Health, which filed its proxy last Thursday, disclosed spending just $7,500 to provide its C.E.O., David Joyner, with home security — roughly half as much as it spent on his financial planning. What to watch: Some companies that typically disclose hefty security expenses, such as Meta, have yet to file their proxies. For 2024, Meta disclosed that it spent more than $27 million on security for its C.E.O., Mark Zuckerberg. “The blessing and the curse is that now everyone inside your company becomes a coder.”— Michele Catasta, the president and head of artificial intelligence at Replit, an A.I. coding start-up. Silicon Valley has embraced A.I. programming tools, but they’ve also forced companies to grapple with managing a flood of code.
OpenAI courts retail investorsOpenAI’s latest fund-raising round made headlines for its sheer scale. The start-up landed $122 billion in capital commitments, which valued the company at $852 billion. But another aspect of the transaction could have big ramifications for regular investors and institutions alike. OpenAI announced that some of its shares would be available to retail investors through exchange-traded funds managed by Ark Invest. The move is a milestone as privately held companies increasingly look to attract retail investment dollars before going public, even as concerns about the risks of private capital mount, Niko Gallogly reports. “The floodgates are open” for retail money in private companies, Todd Sohn, a chief E.T.F. strategist at Strategas, told DealBook. While the S.E.C. restricts most retail investors from investing directly in privately held companies, Wall Street firms like Ark Invest are providing more financial instruments that allow individuals to buy exposure to private companies. Money from retail investors in private capital soared to $22 trillion in 2024, up from $9.7 trillion in 2012, according to Bank of America. But the timing of this deal is awkward. Retail investors are gaining new access to equity in pre-I.P.O. companies, like OpenAI, even as they get cold feet about a different type of private capital investment: private credit. Private credit’s travails underscore the risk of expanding retail access to private markets, Caroline Crenshaw, a former Democratic S.E.C. commissioner, told DealBook. Private markets “shortchange retail investors, who will lack the transparency, liquidity and readily available valuations that come along with public markets,” she said. Crenshaw has argued that larger private companies should provide more information to investors. That would encourage start-ups to go public sooner and reduce the risk for retail investors. We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
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