Block, the parent company of Cash App and Square, announced Thursday it will be laying off more than 4,000 employees — a move that sent the company&#8217;s stock up 25% in after-hours trading.
For most companies, laying off nearly half the workforce would send stockholders into a panic, tanking the stock within minutes of the announcement. But in 2026, investors in Block appear to have the opposite perspective — viewing humans as a liability in the modern economy, thanks in large part to the AI revolution.
Block CEO Jack Dorsey <a href="https://x.com/jack/status/2027129697092731343?s=20">said</a> in a statement on X that the layoffs did not happen “because we&#8217;re in trouble,” but rather because “something has changed.”
“We&#8217;re already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company [sic]. and that&#8217;s accelerating rapidly,” Dorsey said.
Dorsey viewed job cuts resulting from AI implementation as inevitable and chose to rip off the band-aid.
“i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now [sic]. i chose the latter,” Dorsey said. “repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead [sic].”
The layoffs are part of a broader shakeout in tech, where companies including Salesforce, CrowdStrike, Pinterest, and Chegg are shedding workers as AI absorbs key functions.
In a letter to shareholders, Dorsey predicted that, within the next year, “the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.”
Block’s Q4 <a href="https://s29.q4cdn.com/628966176/files/doc_financials/2025/q4/Q4-2025-Shareholder-Letter_Block.pdf">numbers</a> were otherwise in the green, with gross profit increasing 24% year-over-year. Block CFO Amrita Ahuja told investors that the cuts are necessary “for our next phase of long-term growth.”
&#8220;We are choosing to shift how we operate at a time when our business is accelerating and we see an opportunity to move faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work,&#8221; Ahuja said.

Business investment and AI artificial intelligence data analysis technology. Businessman and robot future investor, stock market, forex, and crypto currency finance investment.

4,000 Jobs Gone — So Why Does The Market Love It?

Artificial Intelligence

Economy

Jack Dorsey

Stock Market

U.S.

A little-known government agency could soon be at the center of the Trump administration’s efforts to work with private sector leaders to unleash innovation in American tech companies.
The Commodities Futures Trading Commission on Thursday announced the creation of the Innovation Advisory Committee, The Daily Wire can first report. The committee brings together companies on the forefront of commerce, drawing leaders in cryptocurrency, decentralized finance, prediction markets, and more.
“Today marks an important and energizing moment at the CFTC as the Innovation Advisory Committee takes shape,” CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said in a statement. The committee “will help ensure the CFTC’s decisions reflect market realities so the agency can future-proof its markets and develop clear rules of the road for the Golden Age of American Financial Markets.”
A companion to the better-known Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates capital markets, the CFTC handles derivatives, a broad category encompassing all manner of financial contracts. Like the CFTC itself, the Innovation Advisory Committee will cover a large swath of the financial sector.
Prominent members include Tarek Mansour, CEO of Kalshi, a leading prediction markets platform, and Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptocurrency hub Coinbase. The presidents of FanDuel and DraftKings — two of the leading online sports betting platforms — are also on the commission, as is Vlad Tenev, CEO of the stock trading app Robinhood.
But the commission also includes representatives from more traditional financial institutions, including Nasdaq chair and CEO Adena Friedman, David Schwimmer, CEO of the London Stock Exchange Group, and Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeff Sprecher.
&#8220;There is a strong view from the chairman that this marks a new day for the CFTC and a 180 from the prior administration to put industry engagement front of mind,&#8221; a CFTC official told The Daily Wire.
The agency’s announcement comes at a crucial time for prediction markets. Late last month, the CFTC withdrew a Biden-era rule that restricted futures contracts tied to political and athletic events. That decision opened the gates for platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, which allow users to bet on everything from who will win the Super Bowl to who will carry the White House in 2028.
Faced with the meteoric rise of these platforms, traditional betting outfits like FanDuel, as well as crypto companies like Coinbase and stock trading apps like Robinhood, have rushed to offer their own prediction markets. That the Innovation Advisory Committee includes all of these competitors signals the growing influence of the CFTC, which under Selig is charting a course for greater relevance and impact.
“For too long, the CFTC’s existing framework has proven difficult to apply and has failed our market participants,” Selig said after announcing the rule change. “The new guidance aims to provide straightforward standards so firms know exactly what is allowed and what is not.”
The chairman echoed those sentiments Thursday, saying that the Innovation Advisory Committee will help the CFTC “modernize our rules and regulations for the innovations of today and tomorrow” while ensuring that the United States remains “home to the most transparent and well-regulated financial markets in the world.”
The CFTC’s new advisory board is just the latest instance of the Trump administration partnering with financial leaders. The president tapped Wall Street veterans for top financial posts in his administration, rather than typical Beltway insiders. Trump has also made a point of working closely with American tech companies, bringing leaders in the artificial intelligence space to the White House for a high-profile September summit.

Kalshi Billboards Ahead Of New York Mayoral Election

Trump Admin Assembles Financial Dream Team In High-Stakes America First Move

betting

Cryptocurrency

Donald Trump

Wall Street

America’s frustration with congressional stock trading exploded after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) trades were exposed by Autopilot investment app co-founder <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chris-josephs-knows-pelosis-stock-trades-better-than-anyone-he-says-they-should-be-banned">Chris Josephs</a>. Five years later, lawmakers may finally be forced to respond.
On Monday, Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) <a href="https://x.com/RepBryanSteil">introduced</a> the “Stop Insider Trading Act,” delivering a sharp message to his colleagues. “If you want to trade stocks, you should go to Wall Street,” he said.
&#8220;We are very excited by this bill as we believe it is the most reasonable one proposed to date,” Josephs told The Daily Wire.
Steil’s bill would prohibit lawmakers from buying individual stocks during their tenure, though it would not force them to divest securities they owned before taking office. And while their buying power is limited to index funds, their selling power is left largely unrestricted. Lawmakers would be able to sell individual securities as long as they provided notice at least seven days before the trade.
The legislation does not put limits on other types of investments such as real estate, bonds, or commodities.
Josephs said the bill meaningfully tightens the rules. &#8220;Although it&#8217;s not perfect, it has stricter penalties and forces politicians to buy broader market index funds, which are much harder to insider trade on.”
The bill doesn’t just end with lawmakers; it puts the same restrictions on their spouses and dependent children. Previous efforts have drawn criticism for potentially limiting the careers of the children of the lawmakers. Addressing those concerns, the legislation limits coverage to minor children and adult children still claimed as dependents on a lawmaker’s tax return.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) takes credit for getting this legislation to the floor.
&#8220;After years of insider trading, the discharge petition we brought forward and the members both Democrat and Republican who chose to put their names on it to stop the individual trading of stocks has finally worked,&#8221; the lawmaker said. &#8220;A bill is expected to be passed out of committee as early as this week that will prohibit members of Congress from buying individual stocks.&#8221;
<a href="https://x.com/RepLuna/status/1996664845375078584">Previously</a>, Luna argued that half-measures are insufficient. “The only way to close the loophole is to ban congressional stock trading in its entirety.&#8221;
Along with Luna&#8217;s support, Steil says he has support from House GOP leadership, who have promised to give it a floor vote once the legislation is debated and amendments to the text are considered. Steil looks at the legislation as “an opportunity to regain America’s trust.”
However, the bill is not the only recent effort to attempt to “regain the country’s trust.” In 2020, several senators were accused of trading stocks after private COVID briefings, triggering bipartisan outrage. From 2021 to 2023, multiple bills were introduced, including mandatory blind trusts and outright trading bans, but none became law.
Any proposal would ultimately require lawmakers to vote to restrict their own trading, a hurdle Congress has repeatedly failed to clear. Josephs acknowledged the familiar pattern. 
“We&#8217;ve seen this rodeo before though, so still lots to come on if it&#8217;ll actually pass, but it definitely is a step in the right direction.&#8221;

gettyimages-1198675355-594×594

‘Opportunity To Regain America’s Trust’: New Bill Aims To Close Lucrative Congressional Loophole

Congress

Money

Nancy Pelosi

Politics

Jan 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Wall Street climbed on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting an all-time high thanks to surging financial shares, while energy firms jumped after a U.S. military strike that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Investors bet Washington&#8217;s move against Venezuela&#8217;s leadership would allow U.S. firms access to the world&#8217;s largest oil reserves. A U.S. embargo on Venezuelan oil remained in full effect, U.S. President Donald Trump said.
The S&amp;P 500 energy index rose to its highest since March 2025 and was last up 2.5%, with heavyweights Exxon Mobil rising 2.4% and Chevron jumping 5.8%.
Weapon manufacturers also advanced after Washington&#8217;s military action. Lockheed Martin rose 2.8% and General Dynamics climbed 3.2%, while the S&amp;P 500 aerospace and defense index rose 1.8% to a record high.
&#8220;Energy stocks are really benefiting from the expectation that President Trump is intending to send them in to do more investment in Venezuela and ultimately make more money for themselves,&#8221; said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Seattle.
&#8220;The lack of permanent boots on the ground, the fact that we&#8217;re not permanently engaged, means the broader equity markets are able to set aside what might have been fears of a prolonged engagement,&#8221; Haworth said.
Tesla climbed 4.2% after seven straight sessions of losses. Nvidia dipped 0.6%.
The S&amp;P 500 was up 0.76% at 6,910.73 points.
The Nasdaq gained 0.76% to 23,411.49 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.64% at 49,174.91 points.
The S&amp;P 500 financials index rose 2.7% as investors looked to upcoming quarterly reports. Analysts on average see S&amp;P 500 financial companies growing their earnings 6.7% year-over-year in the December quarter.
Goldman Sachs rose 4.8% and JPMorgan Chase added 3.4%, with both banks hitting record highs.
&#8220;The mood has been favoring financial stocks in recent days and as people look beyond tech, this is a sector many are choosing to look toward,&#8221; said Steve Sosnick, chief market analyst at Interactive Brokers.
Wall Street&#8217;s main indexes posted double-digit gains in 2025 for the third consecutive year, a run last seen in 2021.
Data showed U.S. manufacturing contracted more than expected in December, extending a 10-month slump.
The spotlight will now be on the monthly nonfarm payrolls on Friday, which could influence the Federal Reserve&#8217;s monetary policy in 2026.
Markets are pricing in about 60 basis points of interest rate easing this year, according to LSEG.
Cryptocurrency-linked shares advanced as bitcoin hit a more than three-week high.
Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, climbed 4.6%, while Coinbase gained 8.6%. Goldman Sachs upgraded Coinbase to &#8220;buy&#8221; from &#8220;neutral.&#8221;
Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&amp;P 500 by a 2.4-to-one ratio.
The S&amp;P 500 posted 58 new highs and 10 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 103 new highs and 45 new lows.
(Reporting by Purvi Agarwal and Nikhil Sharma in Bengaluru, and by Noel Randewich in San Francisco; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and David Gregorio)

Dow Hits Record, Energy Stocks Surge After U.S. Strikes Venezuela

Nicolas Maduro

Trump Administration

Venezuela

President Donald Trump celebrated the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting an all-time high on Thursday morning, arguing that polls showing a poor approval rating on his handling of the economy are &#8220;fake.&#8221;
The Dow <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-hits-record-high-while-nasdaq-sp-500-slide-as-oracle-earnings-revive-ai-spending-fears-233526385.html">reached</a> 48,661.94 shortly after the opening bell on Thursday, while the Nasdaq Composite and S&amp;P 500 dropped slightly. The Dow has climbed steadily since late April after a dramatic plunge following the rollout of Trump&#8217;s &#8220;Liberation Day&#8221; tariffs. Trump argued the new record high for the Dow is proof that his economic policies are working.
&#8220;STOCK MARKET JUST HIT AN ALL-TIME HIGH!!! When will the Fake Polls show that I am doing a great job on the Economy, and much more??? Thank you!&#8221; Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115701697468059580">said</a>.
According to recent polls, Trump is losing the approval of many Americans on his handling of the economy. The president&#8217;s approval rating on the economy has fallen to 31%, according to a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-poll-approval-economy-immigration-inflation-crime-9e5bd096964990e040bc4bacd9fcac21">survey</a> the Associated Press released on Thursday. That was down from 40% who approved of his handling of the economy in March. Another <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/699221/trump-approval-rating-drops-new-second-term-low.aspx">poll</a> released by Gallup in November showed Trump&#8217;s approval rating on the economy sitting at just 36%.
Trump has focused much of his attention on boosting the American economy during his second term, including imposing massive tariffs on countries throughout the world and cutting taxes for many Americans through the &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill.&#8221; Trump has also pressured the Federal Reserve to drastically lower interest rates and give Americans more financial room to buy a house.
Inflation has remained relatively low during Trump&#8217;s second term, hovering around 3%, and the stock market has made strong gains in 2025. Still, many Americans continue to worry about the costs of housing and groceries. Democrats have latched onto &#8220;affordability&#8221; messaging in recent months as leftist candidates in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia saw success running on economic issues in their elections last month.
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As the economy and cost of living jump to the top of the list of issues for voters, Trump is focusing on his economic agenda while arguing that the Democrats&#8217; claims of an &#8220;affordability crisis&#8221; are a &#8220;hoax.&#8221;
&#8220;They use the word &#8216;affordability,&#8217; and that&#8217;s their only word,&#8221; Trump <a href="https://www.wcvb.com/article/hoax-affordability-president-trump-addresses-inflation-pa-rally/69684055">said</a> while speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
&#8220;They say, &#8216;Affordability,&#8217; and everyone says, &#8216;Oh, that must mean Trump has high prices.&#8217; No, our prices are coming down tremendously,&#8221; he added. &#8220;They have a new word. They always have a hoax. The new word is &#8216;affordability,&#8217; so they look at the camera and they say this election is all about affordability.&#8221;
Trump&#8217;s stop in Pennsylvania was the first on a planned tour across the United States for the president to deliver his economic messaging directly to his supporters. The White House has pointed to gas prices and rent dropping across the United States, while Trump has also moved to roll back some of his tariffs in an effort to bring down the cost of certain grocery items, such as beef and coffee.
The economy will likely remain a top issue heading into the 2026 midterm elections, and whether Trump&#8217;s controversial tariffs survive a looming Supreme Court decision will have a major impact on how the economy will look heading into the important election season.

Trump Celebrates New All-Time High For Stock Market, Calls Polling On Economy ‘Fake’

2026 Midterms

The fate of the Trump administration — and perhaps Republicans in Congress as well — is tied to American sentiment about the economy.
And right now, nobody knows what the hell is going on or which way is up.
According to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/jobs-report-bls-september-stock-market-today-11-20-2025?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqcjgM64-wIPKktYARvEIXFsJzimXcvAC3fpAwUc7i4Gm1zHe0UCBW67Kh-iYj8%3D&amp;gaa_ts=6920c3b1&amp;gaa_sig=UP5t4kf3TCVh2knpn1gTpG9YTqEgZWWHF-Xp5Wk_rcJLrVoWejOhEl7QdCMjnOa0Gcq4dx_e4ZeKV-trUecuzw%3D%3D">The Wall Street Journal</a> on Thursday night:
<blockquote>Stocks surrendered gains and closed sharply lower after a whirlwind day of trading that began after Nvidia <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/nvidia-earnings-q3-2025-nvda-stock-9c6a40fe">posted strong results</a>. The Nasdaq composite led indexes lower after being up on the day more than 2%. It closed 2.2% lower. Nvidia gave up an even bigger gain and finished the day down 3.2%.</blockquote>
Why did they end up down?
Because investors suspect there is, in fact, an AI bubble.
That suspicion is not unrealistic. Whenever there&#8217;s a transformative technology, people seem to think that just because there is a bubble, that means that the underlying technology is not transformative. If you look back at the history of investment, however, there is always a speculative bubble around brand-new technologies, and it tends to clean out failing companies.
You remember the successful companies. So you remember Henry Ford because Ford ended up being a wildly successful company. But there were dozens of other automobile companies that were startups at the time that ended up crapping out. In fact, Ford had several of them before he actually started the Ford Motor Company.
The same thing was true of the internet.
Everyone remembers that when the Internet bubble burst in 2000, Pets.com was seen as emblematic of the era. 
But what we should remember is that the internet has completely transformed everybody&#8217;s life. We all work on the internet. We all do commerce on the internet; we all interact on the internet.
The stock market bubble of 2000 did not mean the internet wasn&#8217;t important. There are idiots like Paul Krugman who tried to suggest that it wasn&#8217;t important. It was very important.
That&#8217;s also true with regard to AI. People are looking at the current AI boom, and they&#8217;re thinking that at some point here it has to crap out, that some of these companies are not going to be able to develop the kind of margins or gross income that justifies the investment they are currently making. OpenAI is the most obvious example of a company that is not publicly traded, but has so many contracts with publicly traded companies ranging from Oracle to Nvidia that if it craps out, it could take down a bunch of companies with it, or at least severely damage their market capitalization.
According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/technology/ai-stock-boom-nvidia.html#:~:text=Cade%20Metz%20has%20covered%20the,for%20more%20than%2015%20years.&amp;text=It%20would%20not%20be%20a,industry%20as%20a%20historic%20moment.">The New York Times</a>:
<blockquote>It would not be a stretch to describe this period of hyperactive growth in the tech industry as a historic moment. Nvidia, which makes computer chips that are essential to building artificial intelligence, said on Wednesday that its quarterly profit had jumped <a href="https://archive.is/o/5DcUP/https:/www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/technology/nvidia-earnings.html">to nearly $32 billion</a>, up 65 percent from a year earlier and 245 percent from the year before that. Just three weeks ago, Nvidia became the <a href="https://archive.is/o/5DcUP/https:/www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/technology/nvidia-value-market-ai.html">first publicly traded company to be worth $5 trillion</a>. </blockquote>
That means Nvidia is now worth more, according to the stock market, than the entire economy of Germany. 
But some industry insiders say there is something ominous lurking behind all this bubble news. They look at the same eye-popping growth and the same stunning wealth creation from Mr. Huang and see a house of cards. And they say it is hard to know what the damage will be if it collapses.
Even Nvidia&#8217;s growth can be explained away because demand for the company&#8217;s chips doesn&#8217;t mean that people want to use AI; it means that companies are building giant AI systems in the hope that somebody will pay to use them eventually.
This is going to be the question: At some point, the productivity generation from AI is going to have to start matching up to the investments that are being made. People are betting on whether there&#8217;s going to be an AI boom that justifies all this or an AI bust. 
We don&#8217;t know which way it&#8217;s going, which is why people are freaking out.
They&#8217;re also freaking out because if it does succeed, there will be some temporary jobs dislocation. There are a lot of jobs that will become obsolete.
The history of job creation is that the economy becomes more productive. You get nicer things for cheaper prices. You work fewer hours; your grandparents worked many more hours than you do, for example.
But it also means that there is — with technological change —  significant job dislocation, people losing the kind of jobs they&#8217;ve historically held, and then having to find new jobs.
We&#8217;ve generated millions and millions of jobs in areas that we didn&#8217;t even know existed. This is just the way the economy tends to work.
That doesn&#8217;t mean that the angst and heartburn about job dislocation are false.
Thus, two things can be true at once: We can be in a transformative, amazing time for the economy, and the uncertainty and the concern can be real.
And it can&#8217;t all be alleviated by the government.

Dow Jumps Over 600 Points As Nvidia Reports Strong Earnings

What The Hell Is Going On With The Economy?

Ben Shapiro

Dow Jones

Nvidia

Opinion

Oracle

Silicon Valley

On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled about 800 points. As of Friday morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were also tumbling.
What the hell is going on?
It may be that many people are beginning to realize that a lot of these big tech companies, which are investing in each other, are betting on a payoff from AI that may not actually accrue to those companies.
For example, Oracle has become a heavy investor in OpenAI, which is the parent company of ChatGPT. OpenAI is not publicly traded, but you have a bunch of publicly traded companies that are basically doing circular cash deals with OpenAI. Thus, if you&#8217;re investing in Oracle, you&#8217;re partially investing in OpenAI. Or if you are investing in Nvidia, you are partially investing in OpenAI. A lot of money is being passed between all of these companies at the top end of the market, because some provide services to other members of that particular crew.
The question is: Are the gains from AI going to accrue to OpenAI? To Meta? Who will actually benefit from the productivity increases we&#8217;re going to see from AI?
AI is going to be transformative for the economy. You will be using AI in your job if you&#8217;re not already. AI is going to increase productivity.
Does that mean those companies are then reaping the benefits in terms of profits for them? What keeps the wheels spinning for those companies? That&#8217;s the question a lot of investors are beginning to ask.
I&#8217;m highly skeptical that the Fed will cut rates, given the current state of the economy. Inflation has not been put to bed, and liquidity actually is not all that hard to get for businesses right now. Inflating the economy by lowering those interest rates again and pumping more money into the economy could be a mistake.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2318-is-there-an-economic-bubble-and-will-it-burst?elementPosition=5&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
The S&amp;P 500 fell 1.7% on Thursday. The Dow dropped 1.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite sank 2.3%. Those are the biggest declines for all three major indices since October 10.
What does it show? If the economy is this responsive to the possibility of a Fed rate cut or a Fed rate increase, that is not a strong economy.
If what you&#8217;re worried about is whether there&#8217;s going to be incrementally lower interest rates for businesses to artificially spice things up in terms of liquidity, to inject more money into the economy, and that&#8217;s what you&#8217;re waiting on, that does not bode well. It does not mean that the fundamentals seem particularly strong.
Why? Because so much of what is happening at the top end of the market and the vast majority of the gains in the stock market are located in the Magnificent Seven. The rest of the stock market over the past couple of years has been essentially flat, with perhaps a slight increase, while the top end of the market has exploded. That&#8217;s what&#8217;s driven the Dow Jones Industrial Average up to 48,000.
It&#8217;s everybody betting on the same horses over and over and over and over again. And if you keep betting on the same horses over and over and over and those horses don&#8217;t come in, things get ugly. What happens if OpenAI does not deliver the gains it may have promised?
People are starting to divest a little bit from the top of the market. That&#8217;s why you&#8217;re seeing the market start to drop a little bit right now. You could see that turned into a wave if, for example, Open AI ever reports any bad news or if one of these other major AI companies starts to report decreased profit share or people start to think, generally speaking, that it&#8217;ll take longer than they thought it would for AI to filter into every aspect of the market and then down to the original companies.
I&#8217;m not saying that a stock market crash is imminent. I am saying that there is a bubble. In real estate, there&#8217;s a bubble; in tech, there’s a bubble.
And so the market is reflecting that.

US-ECONOMY-MARKETS

Is There An Economic Bubble?

OpenAI

WASHINGTON—When Nancy Pelosi announced her retirement, mixed in among the tributes to the former House Speaker were a lot of jokes about stocks.
“‘America’s Greatest Investor’ gets dethroned!!!” conservative radio host Larry Elder <a href="https://x.com/larryelder/status/1987634512323555496?s=20">wrote</a> on X. “[Shout out] to Nancy Pelosi. [I]n Honor of your retirement, what other stocks should I invest in?” another user <a href="https://x.com/kstaura/status/1986495365793620347?s=20">posted</a>.
Pelosi has come under fire in recent years for her prolific stock trading, which, by some estimates, has earned her <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/nancy-pelosi-paul-pelosi-investments/2025/11/08/id/1233768/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$130 million</a> while in Congress. Although the California Democrat has not been charged with any wrongdoing, her uncanny ability to pick winning stocks has led many to suspect that Pelosi is using insider information to inform her trades.
On Autopilot, an investment app that allows users to model their trades off prominent investors like Warren Buffett, following Pelosi is now the biggest draw, co-founder Chris Josephs told The Daily Wire.
“It makes me sound like I’m faking stuff, but we have all the data,” Josephs said. “We track her filings. She quite literally outperforms hedge funds. There’s just no way around it. She literally just picks good stocks.” Last year, Autopilot estimated Nancy Pelosi made $28 million in profits from trades.
Josephs created Autopilot five years ago to let people follow their friends’ stock portfolios. Eventually, he realized he could grow the app by allowing users to follow successful investors. Once he understood the draw of Pelosi, he launched the Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker <a href="https://x.com/pelositracker">account</a> on X, which brought the former speaker’s trades to an even wider audience.
Through his work, the world has seen Pelosi make massive gains from investments in big names such as Tesla and Nvidia, and her “perfectly-timed” investments are now part of her legacy. 
 Autopilot now has $1 billion in assets under management. That’s good for business, but bad for America, Josephs says.
“An app with the tagline &#8216;Invest like a Politician&#8217; should not be this popular,” he says.
Josephs says he’s a supporter of the push by Pelosi’s colleagues for a bill to bar lawmakers from trading. The Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments — or PELOSI Act — is at the top of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) agenda for when the government reopens, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) <a href="https://x.com/RepLuna/status/1987702215964836113?s=20">said</a> earlier this month. “This should have happened long before Speaker Pelosi announced her retirement, but it’s time to ban Congressional stock trading,” Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) <a href="https://x.com/RepMMM/status/1989010038636077219">added</a>.
“This is not a partisan issue,” Josephs told The Daily Wire. “If we can get this ban through, it literally benefits everybody.”
“There is no net negative for this bill not to go through except for the politicians. It will bring more trust. It’ll bring more transparency. It’ll bring more comfort knowing that these politicians actually pass things that don’t just benefit them,” Josephs added. “The American people need a win.” 
Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley agrees.
“Members of Congress should be fighting for the people they were elected to serve — not day trading at the expense of their constituents. Americans have seen politician after politician turn a profit using information not available to the general public,” the Missouri Republican told The Daily Wire.
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“It’s time we ban all members of Congress from trading and holding stocks and restore Americans’ trust in our nation’s legislative body.”
Josephs says restoring trust in government institutions is Autopilot’s number one goal, even though a ban would affect their business. 
“We will welcome the revenue hit. We will welcome the marketing challenge of not having the Pelosi tracker because we think it brings more trust and transparency back into the institution.” 
In preparation, his team has been expanding its portfolio lineup, adding a tracker that allows investors to follow Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager who famously predicted the 2008 housing crisis and was immortalized in “The Big Short.”
Though Josephs favors the ban, he warns that lawmakers need to be careful about how they craft it, lest the legislation backfire. For instance, earlier versions of the stock trading ban required lawmakers to divest any ownership stakes in private companies.
“A lot of people have small businesses that they privately own,” Josephs said. “It’s really hard to sell these companies because the stock is illiquid and you have to find buyers.”
He also warned the legislation could backfire, cutting off some of the nation’s most capable talent from entering politics. 
“I think it would demotivate a major class of successful people from running for office,” he said. 
“Business people are successful. They know how to run things, how to lead, how to hire, how to create and execute strategies. We shouldn’t turn away those potential candidates because they own businesses that could be difficult to sell. They’d have to find the right price, the right buyer — it’s hard.” 
Josephs said he’s hopeful a version of the bill without that requirement will gain traction, beginning with a congressional hearing expected next week. However, he believes real momentum may not come until 2027 when Pelosi retires.
“Nancy’s a prominent figure, she’s very powerful. She ran the Democratic Party for years. My bet is that some lawmakers, especially on the Democratic side, are hesitant to support the ban publicly because of potential setbacks or headwinds from Nancy Pelosi coming after their camp,” he said. 
“The elephant in the room is she’s the face of this whole thing.”

House Dems Save Healthcare Presser

Chris Josephs Knows Pelosi’s Stock Trades Better Than Anyone. He Says They Should Be Banned.

Insider Trading

Josh Hawley

There are some lessons that must be learned by Republicans from the elections this week. 
Republicans did quite poorly across the board. There&#8217;s a point Matthew Continetti of The Wall Street Journal made. He <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-gop-is-losing-independents-d87b0110?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqeFdRQ_g38TJV0G2OKCWsyv2tgz8k1Fr9UDABIIONWBHzy2WdkvBiX33wOqwRA%3D&amp;gaa_ts=690e63b3&amp;gaa_sig=cNTYsP1fZFO_BxjK-DQqb69SuibyrCc8gefsLXn2XM_VkLX4DO1fhLbTkwJEefzCwe2Rzs4Snn3cTaYawFxvBQ%3D%3D">wrote</a>: 
<blockquote>The off-year Democratic wave flooded Republican safe harbors. Democrats flipped at least 13 seats in Virginia’s House of Delegates. They plan to use their governing trifecta—control of the governor’s mansion and both legislative chambers—to redraw the state’s congressional map in their favor. New Jersey Democrats will enjoy their largest Assembly majority in 52 years. And Georgia Democrats won two seats on the Public Service Commission, the state’s utility board. No Democrat has served on it since 2007.</blockquote>
That was 18 years ago. 
When you look at the 2026 election and the importance of Republicans retaining the House and the Senate, it looks as if Republicans are in a fairly decent position to retain the Senate. In order for Democrats to take the Senate in the next election cycle, they would have to flip a rather unlikely seat, e.g., Iowa. 
But in the House, where Republicans basically have zero margin at this point, Democrats do not need to flip very many seats in order to take over. According to the <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Cook Political Report</a>, of the 16 toss-up seats, 10 are held by Republicans. When you look at another eight that lean Republican and 10 that lean Democrat, you&#8217;re talking about a total possible variance of 34 seats. 
Republicans would have to do really, really poorly to lose all of those. But they don&#8217;t have to lose many of those to lose control of the House. And if they lose control of the House, all you&#8217;re going to get all day long are hearings and investigations and impeachment. 
We know all of this to be the case, and we also know it wouldn&#8217;t be solely due to anything that President Trump is doing. 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2313-member-exclusive?elementPosition=1&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Midterm elections, since World War II, have almost always gone in the direction of the party that is out of power, according to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-warning-sign-2026-house-poll-11001168">Newsweek</a>. The president&#8217;s party has lost an average of 26 House seats and three to four Senate seats in midterms. When the president&#8217;s approval rating is below 50%, the losses tend to be more severe. Presidents with a 50% job approval have seen their parties lose an average of 37 House seats, as opposed to when the president is popular, where they lose about 14 seats on average.
Republican enthusiasm seems not to be nearly as high as when President Trump was on the ballot, and a sinking economy, or at least an economy that doesn&#8217;t feel as though it is soaring, is having a significant downstream impact.
There are audiences President Trump brought in who are beginning to move against him. One of those is Latino audiences, who went very heavily toward President Trump in the last election cycle, but seem to be bleeding away in New Jersey and in Virginia.
That&#8217;s not because Democrats are doing an extraordinary job. It&#8217;s because there has been so much focus on the immigration crackdowns. It&#8217;s one thing to shut the border. It&#8217;s another thing if there&#8217;s stuff all over your TV about your abuela being taken out and then deported.
I do think that all of that media coverage has been terrible, overblown, and inaccurate. Obviously, it&#8217;s not redounding to the benefit of Republicans among Latinos.
But with all that said, the real issue here is the economy. We all know it. Every exit poll from this week, every single one, said the economy was the number one issue.
Our economy is on some shaky footing, not only because of the continued government shutdown — which will end at some point — but because of a generalized feeling that the economic growth that we are currently seeing is not a broad-based economic growth.
When we are looking at the stock market, for example, the vast majority of stock market gains have accrued to the top seven companies in the market, all of which seem to be focused on tech and AI industries, where jobs are being created, but not industries where the vast majority of people are holding jobs.
The tech industry is really important, but if it&#8217;s the entirety of your economic growth, you&#8217;ve got a bit of a problem. The reason that is happening is because investors don&#8217;t know where to put their money. That is due to tariffs, bizarre regulations, and a generalized feeling of too much government involvement in private industry.
The more the government is involved in the economy, the more investors are likely to try and discern where the government’s hand is likely to come down next and then place their money there.
And that is a major problem.
This is something that Republicans should be considering as they head into the next year.
Employers are apparently not adding many jobs, but they&#8217;ve avoided resorting to widespread layoffs. Everyone is holding steady, which is why it feels as though the economy is on the edge. Polls are showing that people are deeply worried about the state of the economy. 
This week, there&#8217;s been a relatively significant decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. One of the reasons is nobody knows where to put their money. They don&#8217;t know how to invest in industries.
Typically, if you&#8217;re going to buy a stock, you&#8217;re supposed to buy a piece of a company that you like because you think it&#8217;s a good company and it is likely to succeed in the foreseeable future.
But that is not the way a lot of people are treating the stock market right now. They&#8217;re treating it the way they&#8217;re treating crypto. If you&#8217;re going to buy crypto, you should buy crypto as a hedge against inflation, for example, which is why I own some Bitcoin and some Ethereum, but nothing else. If you&#8217;re treating crypto as a get-rich-quick scheme, if you&#8217;re treating the stock market as a way of making a quick buck, that is not a solid way to treat your stock.
But that is how people are treating things right now, because people are looking around and things are more expensive. All of the inflationary money blown in during the last days of the Trump administration and the entirety of the Biden administration is still in people&#8217;s pockets. They don&#8217;t know what to do with it. 
Now, the Federal Reserve is lowering those interest rates again in an attempt to create more liquidity, which, again, I&#8217;ve always found is strange. We do not have a dearth of liquidity in the United States right now. We don&#8217;t have a dearth of opportunities for where to put the liquidity; nobody knows what to do next. It feels as if the market is doing fine, but it&#8217;s also paralyzed. 
And that&#8217;s the problem.
The real issue with the market right now is that the middle bulk of the market is not being invested in. One of the reasons that it&#8217;s not being invested in is that there are hungry speculators with too much cash in their pockets, thanks to the free rein of money for a very long time.
But also, there&#8217;s tremendous uncertainty if you&#8217;re in a service industry or manufacturing industry about the tariffs, and that does make a gigantic difference. There&#8217;s no question that people are confused and discombobulated by the day-to-day action of the administration. As I&#8217;ve been saying for literally the entirety of the Trump administration, if the administration pursued lower taxes, lower regulation, and free trade agreements with everybody around China, the economy would be in better shape.
The line for Democrats going forward is going to be if the economy collapses. If the economy goes down, it&#8217;s an existential danger to the Republican Party, which writ large, means an existential danger to the country, because the next step by a lot of people is going to be swiveling over and saying, we need more government. We need more centralized power. 
Ironically, one of the things that could help the Trump presidency is if the Supreme Court strikes down the tariffs, because then the economy will soar because a lot of investors who&#8217;ve been sitting on the sidelines will suddenly feel secure that their inputs are not going to be increased, jacked up randomly by 30, 40, 50%, depending on where they&#8217;re getting their products from. They&#8217;re not going to fear as much that export markets are going to disappear.
I understand that his tariff policy is very near and dear to the president&#8217;s heart. I get it. I understand his feeling that we have been screwed in past trade negotiations. I don&#8217;t even disagree with that. But the answer to that is to negotiate better deals with countries, not to put blanket tariffs on allies we need.
And President Trump understands better than anyone how central the success of the economy is.

Americans voting in an election

Uh-Oh: Warning Signs For Republicans?

Democrats

Republicans

Tariffs

Wholesale prices dropped in August, coming in significantly below what economists had expected, and led to a new record high for the S&amp;P 500 on Wednesday.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Producer Price Index (PPI) came in at 2.6% year-over-year, far below the 3.3% rise that was forecasted, according to <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/ppi-wholesale-inflation-data-august-83ddcabb">Barron’s</a>. Wholesale prices dropped 0.1% on a monthly basis, which was also better than what economists were expecting, with the Dow Jones predicting a 0.3% rise, CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/10/ppi-inflation-august-2025-.html">reported</a>.
“Boy, I’m surprised — real progress here! 2.6% on year-over-year headline. We were expecting 3.3%!” <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1965761591179182133">said</a> CNBC’s Rick Santelli.
CNBC host Becky Quick <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1965762391620391046">added</a> that the inflation report was “a real shocker.”
The White House took a victory lap after the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, blasting “the so-called ‘experts’” who had predicted for months that President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs would cause prices to skyrocket.
“The latest PPI report shows there is no inflation — wholesale prices fell and smashed economists’ expectations. President Trump has defeated Joe Biden’s inflation crisis while successfully implementing powerful tariffs, which haven’t hiked prices like the so-called ‘experts’ claimed,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. “This is yet another reason for Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell to cut the rates immediately to make everyday life more affordable for Americans.”
In July, the PPI increased by 0.7%, which was the highest month-over-month increase since Trump took office for his second term in January.
The S&amp;P 500 surged to a new record high, climbing another 0.4% after the report came out on Wednesday, according to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/09/stock-market-today-live-updates.html">CNBC</a>. Computer software company Oracle led the S&amp;P 500 rally, gaining 40% after the company released a surprising forecast, <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oracle-stock-soars-after-ceo-says-ai-fueled-cloud-revenue-set-to-jump-to-144-billion-154530523.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAI1-i2sXMCo1_r6MGzX2KKW5v4fhoklORnC7L3nznCj71xQWTri54REsRQfjHKpN96sIT2D3X-mIe33cajfQNBG95b7PFPsaXSKelDPTr0nuCMK9FI1ly6yzT1YndXcDiYnJomDW8MBy2nenY0lb0OflSZ1kRI-fPMkS8cSzcexB" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stating</a> that it expects AI-fueled revenue to reach $144 billion by its 2030 fiscal year.
The August inflation report was published just one week before the Federal Reserve Board of Governors meets for its September gathering, as signs indicate that policymakers may lower interest rates after months of pressure from Trump. Fed Chair Jerome Powell <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fed-chair-jerome-powell-hints-at-possible-rate-cut-wall-street-cheers">hinted</a> last month that a rate cut could happen under current economic conditions.
Prices under Trump’s tariffs have continued to defy predictions from economists as American consumers have seen little to no effect on overall prices after the president imposed duties on dozens of countries, including America’s top trading partners. The tariffs, however, will be <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/scotus-agrees-to-hear-case-on-trumps-tariffs-after-admin-asks-for-swift-action">considered</a> by the Supreme Court, as the administration warns that a ruling striking down the tariffs would have “ruinous” consequences for the U.S. economy.

‘Real Progress Here’: Wholesale Inflation Drops In August, Stunning Economists

Inflation

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared on Wednesday that he will begin advocating for a ban on individual stock trading in Congress, arguing that major portfolio gains by lawmakers undermine voter confidence in the system.
When pressed during an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR85WkgO8bc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> with &#8220;Bloomberg Surveillance&#8221; on whether President Donald Trump is prepared to sign off on stock trading legislation <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senate-panel-votes-to-ban-stock-trading-for-lawmakers-president-and-vp-but-spares-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">making its way</a> through Congress, Bessent said he did not believe a &#8220;perfect bill&#8221; had been introduced yet, but did express a desire for a crackdown.
&#8220;I am going to start pushing for a single stock trading ban because the — it is the credibility of the House and the Senate that you look at some of these eye-popping returns, whether it&#8217;s Representative Pelosi, Senator Wyden, every hedge fund would be jealous of them,&#8221; Bessent said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
I am pushing for a ban on single-stock trading in Congress. The American people deserve better than politicians like <a href="https://twitter.com/RonWyden?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RonWyden</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SpeakerPelosi</a> with hedge-fund level returns. Public service should be about serving the people, not getting rich. <a href="https://t.co/yaXFGRfiMz">pic.twitter.com/yaXFGRfiMz</a>
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecScottBessent/status/1955713416292601876?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, was referring to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) — both of whom are <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/06/21/us-news/pelosi-added-millions-to-net-worth-last-year-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimated</a> to be worth <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/net-worth-update-senator-ron-wyden-made-estimated-8241k-stock-market-last-month" target="_blank" rel="noopener">millions</a> of dollars.
&#8220;And you know, the American people deserve better than this. People shouldn&#8217;t come to Washington to get rich,&#8221; Bessent continued. &#8220;They should come to serve the American people and it brings down trust in the system because, I can tell you, that if any private citizen traded this way, the SEC would be knocking on their door.&#8221;
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Pelosi&#8217;s well-known success in the stock market during her time in Congress has drawn intense scrutiny, but it may not be examined by the Securities and Exchange Commission or be a focus of any formal investigation any time soon. In fact, just last month, senators <a href="https://x.com/SenRickScott/status/1950637197272727566" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shot down</a> a measure seeking an inquiry into her trades.
During a recent appearance on CNN, Pelosi <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nancy-pelosi-visibly-perturbed-by-cnns-random-act-of-journalism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">responded</a> to Trump accusing her of insider trading, rejecting the claim.
&#8220;That’s ridiculous,” Pelosi said. &#8220;In fact, I very much support the — stop the trading of members of Congress, not that I think anybody’s doing anything wrong, if they are, they are prosecuted and they go to jail. But because of the confidence it instills in the American people, don’t worry about this. But I have no concern about the obvious investments that have been made over time, I’m not into it, my husband is, but it isn’t anything to do with anything insider.&#8221;
As some other lawmakers <a href="https://www.notus.org/money/shri-thanedar-stock-act-violation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">violate</a> disclosure rules that are currently in place, Bessent pointed out that both <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5267113-donald-trump-congressional-stock-trading-ban/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trump</a> and House Minority Leader Hakeem <a href="https://punchbowl.news/article/house/bipartisan-group-eyes-stock-trading-ban/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jeffries</a> (D-NY) have voiced support for a congressional stock trading ban.
&#8220;The House and the Senate, they&#8217;re supposed to be working for the American people — their constituents,&#8221; Bessent said. &#8220;They&#8217;re supposed to be making law. And they shouldn&#8217;t be trading every day. I&#8217;m not going to name names, but there was one person in Congress who had 12 or 13 hundred trades two years ago. And you know, my hedge fund didn&#8217;t have that many trades.&#8221;
Bessent also warned, &#8220;There&#8217;s something going on on Capitol Hill in terms of information leakage that is statistically &#8230; not sound.&#8221;

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent

Bessent Targets ‘Eye-Popping’ Stock Gains Made By Members Of Congress

Scott Bessent

Treasury Department

As we pass the halfway point of the 2020s, it’s safe to say we’ve all had front row seats to what many people have described as the vibe shift. You don’t really have to pay attention to business to understand that something is changing in corporate America. You don’t have to be looking at stocks every day to realize that the balance of power is shifting away from the heights of wokeness we saw at the beginning of the 2020s. President Trump’s latest executive <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/08/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-guarantees-fair-banking-for-all-americans/">order</a>, prohibiting politicized debanking, is creating massive positive waves for conservatives concerned about losing access to their finances — and investors who don’t want the banks they invest in playing politics. This comes on the heels of other executive orders targeted at biased AI <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/preventing-woke-ai-in-the-federal-government/">programs</a> and divisive, discriminatory <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/">DEI policies</a>.
These big steps are the results of top-down exercises in executive power. And a frequent criticism I hear, as someone whose job it is to pay attention to business, is that Trump’s executive orders will just create a facade of non-wokeness, under which companies will resume their previous biased policies. As it happens, answering that criticism is a major part of my work in the world of corporate engagement. Because the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-year-the-dei-tide-turned?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=10&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+Year+The+DEI+Tide+Turned">pushback</a> against ESG, DEI, &amp; corporate wokeness isn’t just coming from the White House. It’s coming from ordinary investors all across this country who want the businesses they invest in focusing on… well, business.
Let’s take debanking as an example. Months before Trump’s debanking executive order came down, banks like <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/major-win-jpmorgan-chase-ends-political-debanking?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Major+Win%3A+JPMorgan+Chase+Ends+Political+Debanking">JPMorgan Chase</a> &amp; <a href="https://x.com/IsaacWillour/status/1929918865842012351">Citigroup</a> adopted explicit guarantees: no more debanking based on clients’ political beliefs or affiliations. These banks weren’t just anticipating the regulatory and political shift coming from Washington — they were hearing from shareholders. Why? Because when businesses play politics, they don’t just incur the wrath of Republican politicians. These gambles with brand value and deviations from the core business model hurt ordinary Americans, who rightly expect Citigroup to create value for their kids’ college fund instead of opining on gun control through their lending policies.
When JPMorgan Chase debanked Ambassador Sam Brownback, investors took notice. And the investors I work with aren’t the type to sit back and take it. Shareholders like <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/my-bid-to-make-jpmorgan-less-woke-progressive-discrimination-conservatives-christians-shareholders-sec-banking-finances-583c7999?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAhg8WubEGKB7cvLlardDDcKkGeJqpUicqcbM1xoLBHMGeBHqpP1w-ZC4shMtQk%3D&amp;gaa_ts=68957d1d&amp;gaa_sig=hpzyOTrRxsQ-AO0cLmG4VpK0q2-FpzuLTXkXA0T73nZM0Iu73898-9shhfsDz68MpAEbFs9tDXU_DvlMbfl-Fw%3D%3D">David Bahnsen</a> and other ordinary <a href="https://investor.bankofamerica.com/regulatory-and-other-filings/all-sec-filings/content/0001193125-24-064529/d529855ddef14a1.pdf">investors</a> were attending annual meetings and putting pressure on these companies from the inside for years, not to be right-wing or give special privileges to conservatives, but to play it neutral: serve everyone, because everyone needs banks. And because banks have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders, there have been real arguments occurring between investors and company reps for years on the debanking issue. Add to this pressure from red state fiduciaries cutting ties with activist banks (turns out, pro-energy states don’t take kindly to banks demonizing the energy industry), and the supercharging effect of an executive order, and you start to see how corporate America is slowly shifting back towards normalcy. And that’s just the debanking issue.
If you had to sum up why the backlash to corporate wokeness is working in one sentence, try this one: the pro-sanity business ecosystem has become too big to ignore, and too committed to fail. Think about it as a coalition. One part is ordinary investors and institutions who invest for return — these aren’t professional activists, a dynamic that companies are only recently having to get used to. Another part is financial professionals, another part are legal advocates like Alliance Defending Freedom, working to make sure companies can’t just ignore their own shareholders (because they try — often). Another part is friendly journalists and X personalities like Robby Starbuck, putting millions of eyes on this issue. Another part is the countless advocacy groups providing the research &amp; data that fuel our ability to talk to these companies, such as Consumers’ Research and the 1792 Exchange. Effective corporate engagement happens when all these forces align on a single aim: getting companies out of politics &amp; back to business. 
And we’re seeing real results on a whole host of issues. Beyond the debanking issue, we’re seeing companies <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/08/us-banks-quit-net-zero-alliance-before-trump-inauguration">ditch</a> anti-energy commitments in droves (turns out, net zero becomes a fantasy the minute you look at the energy demands of the real world.) We’re seeing companies commit to treating their religious employees with the same respect &amp; privileges afforded to non-religious ones, including through workplace affinity groups and inclusion in charity matching programs. We’re seeing companies like <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/pepsico-puts-out-viewpoint-neutral-media-buying-content-policy-website">PepsiCo</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ibm-rolls-back-dei-commits-to-political-neutrality?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=IBM+Rolls+Back+DEI%2C+Commits+To+Political+Neutrality">IBM</a> commit to not using their ad policies to discriminate against conservative news outlets like the Daily Wire. And we have good reason to believe that, as corporate engagement increases, more wins are coming.
So, what about that façade of nonwokeness? Aren’t companies just going to lie? As it happens, vigilance from actual investors is a fantastic way to safeguard against that. People generally have the biggest incentive to do something when it hurts to not do it. So, who has the biggest incentive to make sure businesses aren’t playing politics? The people who own the business: shareholders. The investors we represent have a clear incentive to be in the details — because the problem of corporate wokeness isn’t just a PR or branding issue. It’s an issue that affects the bottom line Americans depend on.
The vibe shift we’re seeing goes far beyond Washington, even though Washington matters. What’s happening in America, in real time, is conservative investors and institutions waking up and realizing that they’ve been leaving their financial influence on the table. And we truly have no blueprint for how much winning is possible when that influence is brought to bear. So, from Washington, to the halls of conservative institutions, to the ordinary mom-and-pop investors sitting at their kitchen table in West Texas — here’s to winning. The best is yet to come.
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Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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