|  |  | Wednesday, October 8, 2025 |  |  |  | Alex Wong/Getty Images | Good morning, Quartz readers! It’s Shannon Carroll with the Daily Brief. Today, CEOs are practicing their
curtsies, investors are hoarding shiny objects, Washington’s latest investment hits pay dirt, and these Amazon deals are actually worth the cart space. | | HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW | Washington’s stalemate may have a countdown clock. We’re six days in, and lawmakers are staring down Oct. 15, when 1.3 million Defense
Department paychecks are due to bounce if no deal lands first. | Uncle Sam has gone prospecting. Shares of Trilogy Metals soared 230% after Washington’s buy-in, extending a pattern of direct stakes in
industries once considered off-limits to state ownership. | Bitcoin just made history — again. The world’s largest cryptocurrency blew past $125,000 this week as investors, spooked by the dollar and
the shutdown, are treating scarcity as the last safe trade. | It takes two to tango — and to tank. From Oracle to Spotify to Comcast, companies are rediscovering the co-CEO model, where success
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| | THE ART OF THE KNEEL | The richest people in America have never sounded so polite. CEOs who have moved markets with a single word are now choosing them carefully — especially if those words involve President Donald Trump. The president’s aides are reportedly keeping what amounts to a “loyalty report card,” tracking how warmly companies speak about him in public. Each press release, photo op, or donation becomes a data point. The next time a firm needs tariff relief, a merger sign-off, or a little breathing room from regulators, that running
grade could decide how far the favor extends. The invisible hand, it turns out, now writes thank-you notes.
In another era, executives walked out on Trump’s councils over his Charlottesville comments or condemned the Capitol riot. This time around, they’re sending gifts. Apple delivers a gold-plated chip engraved with the White House seal. Nvidia’s praise sounds like a press release with perfect syntax. Google signs a $24.5 million settlement check —
most of it directed toward a ballroom project Trump wants built in Washington.
Economists say CEOs bending the knee to Trump is “very dangerous” and a “risky strategy,” and it’s already reshaping capitalism’s etiquette. But behind the closed-door summits, the applause curdles into anxiety. Executives tell Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld that Trump’s tariffs are kneecapping growth — but no one wants to say that aloud to test the limits of presidential grace. In this market, flattery is
cheap, dissent is dangerous, and democracy is just another line item labeled risk exposure. The richest people in the world can still buy anything — except maybe the courage to speak in their own voices. Quartz’s Shannon Carroll and Joseph
Zeballos-Roig have more on the loyalty curve flattening corporate spines. | | IN GOLD WE TRUST ISSUE | There’s a new shiny object on Wall Street, and it’s the oldest one around. Gold prices have topped $4,000 an ounce
for the first time — after a 50% run in 2025. This is the kind of rally the metal hasn’t seen since the late 1970s, when inflation was rampant, gas lines were long, people wore their wealth around their necks, and “Groovy, baby!” was a common refrain. This time, though, the panic is digital: Gold ETFs are breaking records, central banks are loading vaults, and traders are hoarding the world’s oldest safety blanket like it’s a new issue on the Nasdaq.
Citadel founder Ken Griffin has
called gold’s move “really concerning,” which, translated from finance-speak, roughly means “Oh, no.” He warned that investors are now treating gold as safer than the U.S. dollar — a polite way of saying faith in U.S. institutions is fading fast. Add in a drawn-out government shutdown, questions about the Fed’s independence, and a White House that’s rewriting fiscal rules on the fly, and suddenly the dollar looks less like a rock and more like a raft. Even Bitcoin’s taking a backseat; the “debasement trade” — dumping dollars for anything
shinier — has officially gone mainstream.
Gold’s rally is built on fear, not euphoria. This is a bull market powered by an existential crisis. The metal doesn’t yield dividends, compound earnings, or even produce anything — it just sits there, glowing smugly while the world freaks out. And yet, in a year when every other asset class feels rigged or fragile, that stillness has become its greatest strength. It’s less a gold rush than a global trust fall. In a year when “risk-free”
assets feel anything but, gold has become the market’s therapist: inert, expensive, and quietly taking everyone’s panic in stride. Quartz’s Catherine Baab has more on how gold became Wall Street’s emotional support metal. | |  | SPONSORED |  | | Are you turning healthy fruits into highly unhealthy fruits, without even realizing it?
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