Tax an individual enough and they will vote with their feet, warned JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in his annual shareholder letter on Monday. 
Dimon’s already making the move for JPMorgan Chase by employing more people in his Dallas office than in the company’s New York City headquarters. The banker added that the trend will only continue. Over the past decade, JPMorgan has reduced its New York City headcount from 30,000 to 24,000, while expanding its Texas ranks from 26,000 to 32,000. Dimon acknowledged that New York remains a strong hub for financial talent, but said high costs are one of the firm’s biggest challenges.
“No city or company or country has a divine right to success,” wrote the CEO in his annual shareholder letter. “People like to make this a moral or loyalty issue, but it is not.”
Dimon framed the issue not as politics, but as basic economics. “Companies need to remain competitive in this very competitive, fast-moving world. Higher taxes mean lower returns on capital and less competitiveness by their nature.”
He also drew a comparison to New York in the 1970s, when “nearly half of the 125 Fortune 500 companies based in New York City left.” While mergers played a role during that era’s surge in dealmaking, Dimon argued that “the price of doing business in New York City accounted for most” of the departures. The exodus of major employers contributed to the city’s fiscal crisis and near-bankruptcy in 1975, eroding its tax base.
The 2026 exodus isn’t limited to JPMorgan. Wells Fargo <a href="https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/dallas-county/wells-fargo-massive-irving-campus-texas-banking-boom-accelerates/287-7febeb0c-d4ec-45e4-903f-f93e38e32e3e">opened</a> a new 850,000 square-foot campus in 2025 in Texas and Goldman Sachs is <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/pressroom/press-releases/2025/gs-unveils-fresh-look-inside-northend-campus">developing</a> a $500 million dollar campus in Dallas’ Victory Park. The influx of financial firms has earned the city the nickname “Y’all Street.”
Dimon warned that the trend is likely to accelerate, potentially worsening an already fragile moment for New York City. While he did not mention him by name, his comments come as newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani advocates for higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations. Less than a month into office, Mamdani floated raising property taxes to address what he described as a multibillion-dollar budget gap comparable to the Great Recession. He has also pushed Governor Kathy Hochul to raise the corporate tax rate from 7.25% to 11.5% and add a 2% tax on incomes above $1 million.
When Mamdani won his election, Dimon opened the communication lines by calling the newly elected mayor. Previously, Dimon <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/business/mamdani-nyc-business-leaders.html">called</a> Mamdani’s free buses and rent freezes “the same ideological mush that means nothing in the real world.”
Mamdani has previously told reporters that when he goes into meetings with business leaders, he keeps an open mind. “I go into each of these meetings knowing what I know, knowing what I believe, and interested in what I can also learn from each and every one of the people who have made the city what it is.”
So far, however, there is little indication that the business community’s concerns about higher taxes have swayed him.

Jamie Dimon

Jamie Dimon Has Bad News For NY — And Red State May Reap The Rewards

Economy

JP Morgan

New York City

Texas

U.S.

Wall Street

Zohran Mamdani

Poised to be the largest initial public offering (IPO) of all time, SpaceX’s IPO is expected to break with tradition through a reworked roadshow and an outsized allocation to retail investors. If the company does go public, it is expected to raise between $40 and $80 billion. China’s Alibaba holds the current record for the largest IPO with $22 billion raised in 2014. 
Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-02/spacex-is-said-to-target-more-than-2-trillion-valuation-in-ipo?srnd=homepage-americas">reports</a> that the company is seeking a $1.75 trillion valuation with a listing in June. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs are the banks leading the offering, which are projected to receive <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musks-go-to-banker-is-back-in-action-for-the-spacex-ipo-1dac530a">$400 million</a> from fees.
But in 2020, Elon Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1310672832783884290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1310672832783884290%7Ctwgr%5E5a935ef8b4d0a3cbb4a7e2977788ea09d4cd261a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2020%2F09%2F28%2Felon-musk-spacex-will-probably-ipo-starlink-in-several-years.html">promised</a> not to leave out the retail investor. “We will probably IPO Starlink, but only several years in the future when revenue growth is smooth &amp; predictable. Public market does *not* like erratic cash flow haha. I’m a huge fan of small retail investors. Will make sure they get top priority. You can hold me to it,&#8221; Musk said. Starlink is a division of SpaceX. 
Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2039046398566625501">posted</a> “stand by me” Tuesday on X, the day before reports emerged that SpaceX had filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). CNBC reports that the billionaire is considering reserving as much as 30% of SpaceX’s IPO for individual investors. Typically, retail investors are allocated about 5 to 10% of shares. Musk also appears to be breaking from the competitive IPO bank selection process by turning to trusted relationships.
Chairman of Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley, Michael Grimes, is expected to lead the IPO. He’s worked with Musk before, helping him take Tesla public in 2010 and Twitter private in 2022. Reporting says that Musk submitted a confidential filing, which allows the company to submit its financials to the SEC for regulatory review before the public and prospective investors are able to view. At least fifteen days before the IPO roadshow, SpaceX will have to release a public filing, where investors will be able to review the company&#8217;s financials, business model, and key risks.
The Wall Street Journal reports Musk will do something nontraditional with the roadshow. Normally, executives hit the road to meet investors, but Musk wants investors to travel to SpaceX, where they can view its manufacturing facilities and potentially witness rocket launches.
Musk’s primary goal for SpaceX is to make human consciousness multi-planetary. He hopes to eventually establish a colony on Mars.
SpaceX owns Starlink, and as of February 2, xAI. SpaceX is planning to construct data centers in space using SpaceX rockets to build out the structure. The power generated from these orbital data centers could help satisfy the enormous energy demands of xAI, depending on whether the technology operates as Musk predicts. Musk has previously stated, &#8220;If we harness even a billionth of the Sun’s power for AI/robotics, it will be a 1000X return.”

Elon Musk

Musk Eyes Record-Breaking Listing With Retail Investors At The Center

Business

SpaceX

Starlink

Stock Market

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 ended higher on Wednesday, with the S&amp;P 500 posting its biggest one-day percentage gain in two months, as investors were buoyed by news that a framework for an agreement on Greenland had been reached and the possibility of new U.S. tariffs on European allies had been averted.
Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite also enjoyed milestone days, gaining the most in percentage terms since January 5 and December 19, respectively.
The advances stood in stark contrast to the previous day&#8217;s selloff, which had been the worst daily performance by all three benchmarks since October 10, and reflected U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s use of tariff threats to press his agenda before pivoting once the policy victory could be declared.
&#8220;We have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region,&#8221; Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. &#8220;Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st.&#8221;
Wall Street benchmarks had been trading in positive territory at the time of the announcement, but soared in its wake as investors cheered the aversion of a potential new tariff war over the future of Greenland.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think who owns Greenland has any immediate impact on anything, in terms of economics,&#8221; said Jason Pride, chief of investment strategy &amp; research at Glenmede.
&#8220;What is the economic impact is whether we all start imposing tariffs on each other,&#8221; he added.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 588.64 points, or 1.21%, to 49,077.23, the S&amp;P 500 gained 78.76 points, or 1.16%, to 6,875.62, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 270.50 points, or 1.18%, to 23,224.83.
Before the mid-afternoon Greenland announcement, Wall Street had been broadly positive, as investors responded to Tuesday&#8217;s bruising selloff. However, while initial momentum had propelled benchmarks more than 1% higher, this energy had been ebbing by early afternoon.
While light on details, Trump&#8217;s announcement allowed markets to focus on underlying strengths within the U.S. economy, including strong earnings from banks.
The latest wave of results from lenders, including some of the largest superregional names, helped send the regional banking index soaring 4.7% to its highest close since November 2024.
Citizens Financial Group surged 7.1% to a record closing high, on the back of a 31.7% jump in quarterly profit. Truist Financial Corp climbed 1.8% after recording higher interest income and fees from investment banking.
All the S&amp;P 500 subsectors rose, led by energy. It was buoyed by Halliburton, which gained 4.1% after earnings beat estimates, while EQT Corp and Expand Energy advanced 6.5% and 4.5% respectively, as natural gas prices hit a six-week high on cold weather.
United Airlines rose 2.2% after the carrier issued an upbeat outlook for the current quarter and the full year. Other airlines benefited from the positive sentiment, with Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, and Southwest all gaining between 1.1% and 2.4%.
Meanwhile, Netflix dropped 2.2% after reporting a muted outlook in its latest earnings. The streaming giant&#8217;s stock was also weighed by a pause in share buybacks to help fund the purchase of Warner Bros Discovery&#8217;s studio and streaming businesses.
Kraft Heinz fell 5.7% after a regulatory filing showed Berkshire Hathaway may shed its 27.5% stake in the consumer company.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru and David French in New York; Additional reporting by Johann M Cherian; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Shilpi Majumdar)

FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor of the NYSE in New York

Wall Street Ends Higher As Investors Cheer Greenland Framework Deal, Averted Tariffs

Europe

Greenland

Tariffs

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

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?

Artificial Intelligence

Ben Shapiro

Dow Jones

Nvidia

Opinion

Oracle

Silicon Valley

Congress overwhelmingly votes to force the DOJ to open its full records on Jeffrey Epstein, markets tumble this week amid concerns about an AI bubble, and a new investigation suggests academic fraud in higher education.
It’s Wednesday, November 19, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-251119-member-exclusive">video version can be seen on The Daily Wire</a>:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/epstein-files-freed-campus-competence-crisis-11-19-25/id1576594336?i=1000737386930" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Congress Approves Release Of Epstein Files</h2>
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Topline: Congress on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to release all Justice Department files tied to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein –  and with President Donald Trump’s support.
The Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent, a procedural method of approving legislation without a formal roll call, hours after the House passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act by a vote of 427-1. It was <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4405/cosponsors">sponsored</a> by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and a host of Democrats, and effectively calls for the release of all of the so-called Epstein files. It specifically calls for the Justice Department to release materials that relate to Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s escort and lover. The release will supposedly include details Americans have been waiting for a long time to learn.
Not so fast: There&#8217;s a good chance the Justice Department could retain some names, redact others, and restrict certain files it believes the public shouldn&#8217;t see.
This is standard practice for sensitive official releases. Democrats recently released files while redacting the name of the late Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein&#8217;s victims. In Giuffre’s case, her identity and story regarding Epstein are already well-known, yet Democrats chose to redact her name anyway. There are certainly many discussions about how these documents will be viewed and what details the public will or won&#8217;t have access to.
White House under pressure:  White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has appeared very restrained, very careful, telling the public that Democrats are pushing for the release of these files to weaponize them against Trump. The administration’s messaging has been that Trump hated Epstein, that Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago, and that Trump was no longer friends with Epstein because he was a creep. The White House says Democrats want to weaponize these files and that if there were anything against Trump in them, it would&#8217;ve been used under the Biden Justice Department.
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The pivot for the White House has been that Trump is realizing his original MAGA base wants the files. The president has also realized that both House and Senate Republicans support releasing the files. 
Trump has already seen many different items released in the files, where people have tried to say this or that is incriminating to him. None of it has implicated the president in wrongdoing, however. Some items emerging might be distasteful or upsetting to some, but at the end of the day, none of it has implicated the president in anything like what Democrats would like to implicate him in.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Wall Street Bubble?</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1002567" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/AIs-Wall-Street-Wobble-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/AIs-Wall-Street-Wobble-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/AIs-Wall-Street-Wobble-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/AIs-Wall-Street-Wobble-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/AIs-Wall-Street-Wobble-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/AIs-Wall-Street-Wobble.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: Global stock markets tumbled this week amid growing fears over an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble and ongoing affordability concerns.
Throughout the summer and fall, millions of Americans were ecstatic to open up their investment portfolio each week as markets soared. The DOW, S&amp;P 500, and NASDAQ are up by more than 10% this year.
Those gains were primarily driven by excitement over AI, one of the most significant developments for Wall Street. As new applications and technologies emerge month after month, investors have gobbled up shares of anything remotely related to AI.
But in the past week, markets have begun to look a bit shaky—the DOW, SP500, and NASDAQ are each down by more than 3.5%, and tech stocks in particular have been hit the hardest.
Why? The biggest and most obvious concern is that a bubble has formed, and all the frenzied investors looking to get in on the AI action have pumped trillions of dollars into the industry, driving stock prices far beyond their worth.
Most AI companies are still in the research and development phase and are not making money. For example, MIT recently surveyed 300 AI companies and found that 95% had yet to turn a profit, despite taking in a combined $40 billion in outside investments.
Bets against AI: A number of well-known investors and venture capitalists are betting against AI stocks. Michael Burry, made famous in the movie &#8220;The Big Short&#8221; (2015), has reportedly made more than $1 billion in bets that Palantir and Nvidia’s stock prices will fall. Billionaire tech founder Peter Thiel and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son each liquidated all of their Nvidia stocks, sparking even more concern.
The other side: Goldman Sachs released a report this week expressing confidence that the market is correctly valuing the benefits from AI and that valuations are not at “bubble levels.” Two of their lead analysts wrote that “simple arithmetic” shows that markets are running “well ahead of the macro impact.” In other words, the market is pricing in future profits that will come thanks to AI technology.
Kenny Polcari, chief market strategist at Slatestone Wealth, told Morning Wire that the situation is not as bad as some people seem to think.
“While I think that valuations are stretched, I am not in the camp that I think we&#8217;re in a bubble. A bubble suggests something very different,” said Polcari. “This was the fourth industrial revolution. Everyone had to be in it, so they talked it up, and now with this, it&#8217;s exhausted. … It&#8217;s going to probably feel uncomfortable, but I&#8217;m not in the camp that I think it&#8217;s a bubble.”
Polcari conceded that prices were bound to correct at some point, but in his view, that presents a long-term opportunity for average investors.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Academic Standards Sink</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1002569" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Academic-Standards-Surrender-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Academic-Standards-Surrender-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Academic-Standards-Surrender-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Academic-Standards-Surrender-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Academic-Standards-Surrender-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Academic-Standards-Surrender.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: Colleges are increasingly admitting students who struggle with middle school-level academics.
Pop quiz: 7 + 2 = blank + 6.
The answer is three, of course. A simple enough math problem, but a quarter of students at the University of California, San Diego didn’t know the answer to that question.
The school put out a <a href="https://senate.ucsd.edu/media/740347/sawg-report-on-admissions-review-docs.pdf">report</a> this month on a “steep decline in the academic preparation of its entering first-year students.” It said “[b]etween 2020 and 2025, the number of freshmen whose math placement exam results indicate they do not meet middle school standards grew nearly thirtyfold.” Worse, it wasn’t because they hadn’t taken courses in high school–they did, and many of them actually got high grades. The high schools seem to be just passing students who have no idea what they’re doing, often with As and Bs.
Consequences: If students aren’t ready for college-level work, they may face academic difficulties that increase their chances of dropping out and taking on debt without a degree.
The dumbing down of college has also led to inflation. Now, people have to waste precious years getting a graduate degree just to prove they’re as smart as what used to be required for a bachelor’s.
Why? Some, but not all, of what’s gone wrong has been driven by racial politics. A Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-black-college-is-a-criminal-enterprise-ex-top-official-says-in-lawsuit">report</a> published Monday on an HBCU (Historically Black College and University) underscores the concerns.
The University of Maryland Eastern Shore admits 90% of applicants and has a 17% graduation rate. There have been four separate lawsuits filed against it in the last few months, alleging, among other things, that the school has almost no standards and condones cheating to keep its graduation rate from falling.
One lecturer, Ciu Fang, said that most students failed her advanced computer science class—a result she saw as the inevitable outcome of turning students who barely made it through high school into college undergraduates.

MorningWire-0428

Morning Brief: The Epstein Files, AI Bubble Gets Nervous, & Schools Keep Lowering The Bar

Morning Brief: House Votes On Epstein Files, AI Bubble Debate, And Academic Standards Slouch

Department of Justice

Jeffrey Epstein

Media

Morning Wire

Thomas Massie

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.
* * *
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.

Flag and Wall street sign

Why The Pro-Sanity Coalition Is Winning Again In Corporate America

Banks

Corporations

debanking

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Woke Culture

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman vowed on Wednesday to provide &#8220;hundreds of millions of dollars&#8221; to back any viable challenger against Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York City&#8217;s mayoral race.
Mamdani <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/andrew-cuomo-falls-to-radical-socialist-zohran-mamdani-in-nyc-mayoral-primary?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Tim+Rice&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Andrew+Cuomo+Falls+To+Radical+Socialist+Zohran+Mamdani+In+NYC+Mayoral+Primary">defeated</a> former Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York City&#8217;s Democratic primary on Tuesday and will compete against incumbent Mayor Eric Adams (running as an independent this cycle) and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa in the November general election.
Ackman, founder and chief executive of hedge fund manager Pershing Square Capital, <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/politics/billionaire-bill-ackman-promises-millions-to-anyone-willing-to-challenge-mamdani-for-nyc-mayor/">wrote</a> a lengthy post on X to express his alarm at Mamdani’s victory.
&#8220;I awoke this morning gravely concerned about New York City,&#8221; Ackman wrote. &#8220;I thought &#8216;What has NYC become that an avowed socialist who has supported defunding the police, whose solution to lowering food prices is city-owned supermarkets, who doesn&#8217;t understand that freezing rents will only make apartments scarcer and more expensive in the long run.'&#8221;
The billionaire investor compared a potential Mamdani-led New York to &#8220;another failed major city run by Democrats alongside Seattle, Chicago, LA, and SF,&#8221; quoting Senator John Fetterman&#8217;s (D-PA) assessment that Mamdani&#8217;s victory represented &#8220;Christmas in July for the GOP.&#8221;
&#8220;A mayor who disrespects the NYPD and has called for their defunding will get less effective policing, and Bratton&#8217;s &#8216;broken window theory&#8217; will operate in reverse,&#8221; Ackman wrote, warning that New York City would become &#8220;much more dangerous and economically unviable&#8221; under Mamdani&#8217;s administration.
Ackman assured potential candidates that funding would be instantly available, stating, &#8220;there are hundreds of million of dollars of capital available to back a competitor to Mamdani that can be put together overnight,&#8221; and adding that he is &#8220;in the text strings and the WhatsApp groups&#8221; organizing the effort.
The financier noted that any challenger would likely need to run as a write-in candidate, but suggested this could become &#8220;an important call to action that brings people in throngs to the polls&#8221; rather than a disadvantage.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I awoke this morning gravely concerned about New York City. I thought “What has NYC become that an avowed socialist who has supported defunding the police, whose solution to lowering food prices is city-owned supermarkets, who doesn’t understand that freezing rents will only…
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) <a href="https://twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1938094628034506984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
New York City, with a gross metropolitan <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP35620">product</a> of $2.3 trillion and a population exceeding 8 million residents, is America&#8217;s financial nerve center. Many on Wall Street reacted with dread following Mamdani’s primary win, and <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/06/23/us-news/nyc-biz-leaders-left-shaking-over-prospect-of-zohran-mamdani-mayoral-win-it-would-be-disastrous/">predicted</a> a mass exodus from the city if he is elected in November.
Mamdani, a state assemblyman representing parts of Queens, has championed policies that alarm fiscal conservatives and moderate Democrats alike. His <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/here-are-the-top-five-craziest-policy-proposals-from-nyc-mayor-candidates?author=Catherine+Maxwell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Here+Are+The+Top+Five+Craziest+Policy+Proposals+From+NYC+Mayor+Candidates">platform</a> includes advocating for city-owned supermarkets, rent freezing measures, and significant reallocations of police funding to social services.
Ackman expressed particular concern about Mamdani&#8217;s stance on Israel, noting that &#8220;a mayor who condones hate speech will incentivize more hate speech and violence,&#8221; adding that &#8220;words matter, and yes, they can inspire people to kill as we have recently tragically seen in our country and around the world.&#8221;
Mamdani has stated that he doesn’t believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state, refused to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada,” and recorded a <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/06/21/us-news/socialist-nyc-mayoral-candidate-zohran-mamdani-once-rapped-about-his-love-for-hamas-teror-funding-group-holy-land-five/">rap song</a> expressing “love” to convicted Hamas financiers. His October 7 statement notably focused on “ending the occupation” with little mention of Hamas’ massacre of Israeli civilians.
Ackman suggested that former Mayor Michael Bloomberg might play a significant role in any challenge to Mamdani, stating that he was &#8220;sure that Mike Bloomberg will share his how-to-win-the-mayoralty IP and deliver his entire election apparatus and system to the aspiring candidate.&#8221;
The investor called on his followers to &#8220;crowdsource&#8221; potential candidate names and conduct polling to identify the most viable challenger.

US-POLITICS-ECONOMY-MILKEN

Billionaire Pledges To Bankroll Any NYC Mayoral Candidate Who Can Beat Zohran Mamdani

Andrew Cuomo

Bill Ackman

Democratic Party

New York

Socialism

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Wall Street advanced on Tuesday as investors welcomed a fragile truce with Israel and Iran while parsing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell&#8217;s congressional <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jerome-powell-suggests-delaying-rate-cuts-beyond-july-meeting-while-fed-studies-tariff-impact">testimony</a> for clues regarding the U.S. central bank&#8217;s path forward.
All three major U.S. stock indexes were on track for their second straight session of solid gains following U.S. missile strikes on Iran&#8217;s uranium enrichment assets.
The benchmark S&amp;P 500 was less than 1% below its all-time closing high reached on February 19.
Late Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire agreement, but then on Tuesday, the president <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-holds-ceasefire-after-israel-refrains-from-major-retaliation-for-irans-strike-on-civilians">stepped in</a> to urge Israel to stand down on a retaliatory attack on Iran after Iran killed at least four people in an attack in southern Israel targeting civilians just before the ceasefire went into effect.
Still, investors viewed the ceasefire as a sign of de-escalating tensions.
&#8220;The market has learned very precisely over the last generation that any time there’s a geopolitical flare-up in the Middle East that affects U.S. financial markets, those effects will be short-lived,&#8221; said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon in Charlotte, North Carolina.
&#8220;The ceasefire is just cementing that view,&#8221; Ladner added.
Crude prices slid on waning supply concerns related to the conflict, dragging energy shares lower.
Powell, speaking before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, reiterated his view that rate cuts can wait until the economic effects of tariff increases are better known, adding &#8220;we are well positioned to wait to learn more about the likely course of the economy before considering any adjustments to our policy stance.&#8221;
Financial markets have been pricing in a more than 20% likelihood that the Fed will lower its key interest rate at the conclusion of its upcoming July policy meeting, and a near 70% probability that its first rate cut will land in September.
&#8220;We think September&#8217;s very likely and we think while July is not a zero probability event, it&#8217;s definitely a long shot,&#8221; Ladner said.
On the economic front, Consumer Confidence deteriorated this month, with pessimism toward the jobs market falling to its lowest level since March 2021.
The Commerce Department is expected to release its final take on first-quarter GDP on Thursday, and on Friday its closely watched Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report will shed light on inflation, consumer spending and income growth.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 513.96 points, or 1.21%, to 43,095.74, the S&amp;P 500 gained 71.64 points, or 1.19%, to 6,096.94, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 305.28 points, or 1.56%, to 19,936.25.
Among the 11 major sectors of the S&amp;P 500, Tech shares led the gainers, while energy stocks were the sole decliners.
Among megacap stocks, Tesla shares shed 2.0%.
Airline stocks gained altitude amid cooling Middle East tensions. The S&amp;P 1500 Airlines index advanced 2.3%.
But defense stocks lost ground, with Lockheed Martin and RTX Corp both off about 2.9%.
Shares of crypto companies rose after bitcoin hit a one-week high. Coinbase Global and Strategy advanced 11.7% and 3.8% respectively.
Broadcom touched a record high, after HSBC raised the semiconductor manufacturer to &#8220;buy&#8221; from &#8220;hold&#8221;. The stock was last up 3.4%.
Package delivery firm FedEx is expected to report quarterly results after the closing bell.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 3.38-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 195 new highs and 49 new lows on the NYSE.
On the Nasdaq, 3,430 stocks rose and 1,007 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 3.41-to-1 ratio.
The S&amp;P 500 posted 18 new 52-week highs and no new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 109 new highs and 49 new lows.
(Reporting by Stephen Culp; Additional reporting by Kanchana Chakravarty in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio)

Traders work on the floor of the NYSE in New York

Wall Street Rallies, S&P 500 Nears Record High As Middle East Tensions Cool

Iran

Israel

Middle East

Retail giant Target revealed on Tuesday that customer boycotts damaged its sales in the first quarter, following the company&#8217;s January decision to scale back several diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Sales fell 2.8% from last year to $23.85 billion, below the $24.23 billion Wall Street expected, with Target now expecting a low-single digit decline in annual sales for 2025, a significant downgrade from its March projection of a 1% increase.
According to the company’s earnings <a href="https://corporate.target.com/press/release/2025/05/target-corporation-reports-first-quarter-earnings#:~:text=For%20fiscal%202025%2C%20the%20Company,be%20approximately%20%247.00%20to%20%249.00.">report</a>, “Comparable sales decreased 3.8 percent in the first quarter, reflecting a comparable store sales decline of 5.7 percent and comparable digital sales growth of 4.7 percent.”
Target, previously a staunch supporter of leftist causes, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/target-rolls-back-dei-joining-other-major-companies-like-walmart-meta">announced</a> in January it would phase out several DEI initiatives after criticism from conservative activists and the White House.
Despite the reversal, the company continues to receive backlash from both the Right and the Left, with many conservatives arguing that the retailer’s retreat from DEI policies has come too late.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=memorial&amp;utm_content=editorialmemorialday">Memorial Day Sale &#8211; Get 40% Off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
In February, Target was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/target-faces-shareholder-lawsuit-over-pride-campaign-dei-initiative-fallout">hit</a> with a class action lawsuit from shareholders who accused the retailer of misleading them about the risks posed by its DEI initiative, which the plaintiffs allege contributed to Target&#8217;s stock having plummeted more than 37% over the past year.
Rev. Jamal Bryant, who <a href="https://apnews.com/article/40-day-target-boycott-fast-dei-d1d40f79f5f1b3afb2dfe8561e7729a0">led</a> a nationwide 40-day boycott of Target stores after the company ended DEI initiatives in “a spiritual act of resistance,” called for a continuation of that effort.
“We faced several additional headwinds this quarter, including five consecutive months of declining consumer confidence, uncertainty regarding the impact of potential tariffs, and the reaction to the updates we shared on [DEI] in January,” Target CEO Brian Cornell <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/21/business/target-earnings-dei-tariffs">said</a> on an earnings call.
“I want to be clear that we’re not satisfied with these results,” Cornell added. “We’ve got to drive traffic back into our stores and visits to our site.”
The company faces additional challenges from potential tariffs on Chinese imports. While President Donald Trump&#8217;s threatened 145% tariffs were reduced to 30% in a May 12 deal, with some higher tariffs paused for 90 days, Target remains <a href="https://apnews.com/article/target-first-quarter-earnings-tariffs-ed5765bac92257a0bab3815ece31f5c1">vulnerable</a> due to its higher reliance on discretionary items compared to competitors like Walmart, according to the AP.
&#8220;We look at competition,&#8221; Cornell explained regarding potential price hikes. &#8220;We make adjustments literally each and every week, so we&#8217;re constantly adjusting pricing. Some are going up. Some will be reduced.&#8221;
The retailer operates nearly 2,000 stores nationwide with more than 400,000 employees, making its financial performance a significant indicator for the broader retail sector.
Out of 35 merchandise categories Target tracks, the company is currently gaining or maintaining market share in only 15, the AP reported.

Target’s DEI Drama Costs Big As Boycotts Impact Sales

Retail

It’s not an exaggeration to say that conservative shareholder engagement is changing the corporate game. For years, Left-wing activists controlled the agendas at our largest companies, using not only their leverage as stockholders but their perpetual devotion to activism to get in the ear of America’s boards and directors. The result? Leftward drift in virtually every major company. But now conservative shareholders, from ordinary investors to major conservative nonprofits, are stepping into the game — and their engagements are bearing major fruit. The latest proof? IBM.
IBM’s track record on corporate bias and activism is notorious. The company was a member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a group created by the World Federation of Advertisers that worked to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-daily-wire-addresses-the-ad-industry-following-the-fall-of-garm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">keep ad revenue away</a> from conservative news sites like the Daily Wire to free speech-centric platforms like X. And that’s before all the DEI concerns surfaced. After IBM CEO Arvind Krishna was caught on a <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1734374423124176944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1734374423124176944%7Ctwgr%5E42e55266e59ec08d85550be6ab044097866bd072%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdallasexpress.com%2Fbusiness-markets%2Fceo-of-tech-corp-ibm-enshrines-dei-hiring%2F">hot mic</a> discussing how the company uses quotas of ‘underrepresented’ minorities in determining their executive pay — in Krishna’s words, execs have “got to move both [race and gender] forward by a percentage point” in order to get a higher bonus. That means DEI. That means quotas. Following these snafus, the reputational, ethical, and (in the case of the Missouri AG who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/missouri-attorney-general-sues-tech-giant-ibm-alleging-discrimination-against-whites-asians-men" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> IBM) legal scrutiny was swift in coming.
IBM’s motto since its early years has been “THINK,” referring to the innovative spirit with which the company solves problems. Yet when it came to political bias, that motto was missing in action — and shareholders took notice. In January, the firm I work for, Bowyer Research, began <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-expands-efforts-hold-corporate-america-accountable-end-its-discriminatory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">work</a> with the Heritage Foundation to hold IBM accountable for the DEI quotas that Krishna described. The argument? Simple — use of non-meritocratic quotas based on race and gender aren’t just bad for reputation, but illegal on their face and bad for business. Shareholders, from major nonprofits to ordinary mom-and-pop investors, shouldn’t have their business returns impacted by IBM’s belief in identity politics.
As the shareholder engagement heated up on the internal front, pressure from <a href="https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5515346/the-ibm-red-hat-leaks-what-weve-learned-so-far" target="_blank" rel="noopener">journalists</a> and <a href="https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1910425361034383545" target="_blank" rel="noopener">influencers</a> like Robby Starbuck increased on the external front. That pressure built and built — and the release began earlier this month, when IBM announced the end of many of its DEI initiatives and related goals, including the elimination of its diversity council, the phaseout of its supplier diversity initiatives, and no longer participating in surveys put out by radical corporate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-radical-intolerance-behind-woke-corporate-activism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">activist groups</a> like the Human Rights Campaign, which pressures companies to cover puberty blocker access for employees’ children in the name of “health care access.”
That would have been news enough — until several days ago, when IBM also <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-secures-commitment-viewpoint-neutrality-ibm-encourages-company" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agreed</a> to include viewpoint neutrality as part of its advertising policy in response to Heritage’s shareholder engagement. That means that biased, activist-driven, political censorship that ad cartels like GARM perpetuate is now explicitly banned under IBM corporate policy. IBM listened to its shareholders, its employees, and its customers — and the result is another company willing to make commitments to political neutrality. This is what happens when authentic shareholder advocacy, championing political neutrality, merges with external pressure to drop corporate bias: change happens, and happens in the form of concrete policy commitments, not just boilerplate PR statements. It’s a praiseworthy step.
But is the scrutiny over? Absolutely not. IBM needs to demonstrate that they’re committed to actually staying the course on being politically-neutral and quota-free. Outstanding questions remain. During our engagement on behalf of Heritage, the company <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/corpfin/no-action/14a-8/heritageibm3325-14a8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">notably claimed</a> to the SEC that they couldn’t give a definition of DEI as grounds to ignore shareholder concerns — so how did they go from not knowing what DEI is to getting rid of it? (You can probably guess how.) The company holds its annual meeting of shareholders today, and if they’re savvy will make a point of focusing their messaging on business, not activism.
Achieving the commitment to neutrality at IBM was the result of a myriad of groups, from shareholders like Heritage to <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/sec-sides-with-adf-denies-absurd-attempt-from-govt-contractor-ibm-to-hide-from-shareholders-on-dei-proposal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legal giants</a> like Alliance Defending Freedom to the courageous IBM employees willing to speak out about the bias behind the scenes. And it’s going to take all of those groups to be vigilant now — not paying attention to our boardrooms is what got us into the woke mess in the first place.
This is the next phase of rooting out bias and wokeness from corporate America — watching tirelessly to see whether companies that commit to ditching DEI are actually willing to put their messaging and money where their mouths are. Smart companies will be willing to commit to change. Foolish ones will hope to either avoid scrutiny altogether or reintroduce the same tired DEI policies under the guise of <a href="https://www.shrm.org/executive-network/insights/time-to-add-b-for-belonging-to-workplace-dei-strategy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">phrases</a> like “belonging.” It’s our job, as shareholders, as customers, and as Americans, to keep up the pressure for accountability with the leverage that we’ve been given. And above all, to make the case for what truly makes every company successful: the courage to resist activism and the fortitude to focus on business.
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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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