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EBERSWALDE, Germany (AP) — A company that specializes in early wildfire detection has developed a new, AI-based drone it says will help speed up the detection, location and monitoring of fires.

The Silvaguard drone by Dryard Networks was presented Thursday in Eberswalde outside of Berlin as wildfires driven by extreme heat and climate change are becoming a more common, often deadly phenomenon around the globe.

The drone will deliver infrared images, among other things, and works in combination with a fire detection system that the company developed earlier and that's already being used in several countries. The fire detection system, called Silvanet, is designed to detect wildfires at the smoldering stage using solar-powered gas sensors connected via a wireless network.

Each gas sensor can protect an area the size of a football field and be attached to a tree. The plan is that once Silvanet detects a fire, it will trigger a nearby Silvaguard drone to fly to the location and provide detailed images.

“Today we saw a combination of Silvanet — the solar powered gas sensors that detected the fire within minutes — with Silvaguard, the first prototype of an autonomous, an AI enabled drone that we dispatched in response to a fire," said Carsten Brinkschulte, the CEO and co-founder, Dryad Networks.

The drone “flew autonomously to the location of the sensor, detecting the fire, and delivered overhead infrared and optical video from the point of fire,” he said of the newly developed drone.

The company is still waiting to get the go-ahead for the commercial use of Silvaguard drone from authorities.

The information about the fire, including geographic coordinates, video and infrared images, will then be sent to the firefighters who will then know where the fire is spreading and how big it is, which will help them know how many firefighters need to be deployed.

“When it comes to wildfires, time is of the essence, you cannot be fast enough,” Brinkschulte said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Fans of Studio Ghibli, the famed Japanese animation studio behind “Spirited Away” and other beloved movies, were delighted this week when a new version of ChatGPT let them transform popular internet memes or personal photos into the distinct style of Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki.

But the trend also highlighted ethical concerns about artificial intelligence tools trained on copyrighted creative works and what that means for the future livelihoods of human artists. Miyazaki, 84, known for his hand-drawn approach and whimsical storytelling, has expressed skepticism about AI's role in animation.

Janu Lingeswaran wasn't thinking much about that when he uploaded a photo of his 3-year-old ragdoll cat, Mali, into ChatGPT's new image generator tool on Wednesday. He then asked ChatGPT to convert it to the Ghibli style, instantly making an anime image that looked like Mali but also one of the painstakingly drawn feline characters that populate Miyazaki movies such as “My Neighbor Totoro” or “Kiki's Delivery Service.”

“I really fell in love with the result,” said Lingeswaran, an entrepreneur who lives near Aachen, Germany. “We're thinking of printing it out and hanging it on the wall.”

Similar results gave the Ghibli style to iconic images, such as the casual look of Turkish pistol shooter Yusuf Dikec in a T-shirt and one hand in his pocket on his way to winning a silver medal at the 2024 Olympics. Or the famed “Disaster Girl” meme of a 4-year-old turning to the camera with a slight smile as a house fire rages in the background.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which is fighting copyright lawsuits over its flagship chatbot, has largely encouraged the “Ghiblification” experiments and its CEO Sam Altman changed his profile on social media platform X into a Ghibli-style portrait. In a technical paper posted Tuesday, the company had said the new tool would be taking a “conservative approach” in the way it mimics the aesthetics of individual artists.

“We added a refusal which triggers when a user attempts to generate an image in the style of a living artist,” it said. But the company added in a statement that it “permits broader studio styles — which people have used to generate and share some truly delightful and inspired original fan creations.”

Studio Ghibli in Japan declined to comment Friday.

As users posted their Ghibli-style images on social media, Miyazaki’s previous comments on AI animation also began to resurface. When Miyazaki was shown an AI demo in 2016, he said he was “utterly disgusted” by the display, according to documentary footage of the interaction. The person demonstrating the animation, which showed a writhing body dragging itself by its head, explained that AI could “present us grotesque movements that we humans can’t imagine.” It could be used for zombie movements, the person said.

That prompted Miyazaki to tell a story.

“Every morning, not in recent days, I see my friend who has a disability,” Miyazaki said. “It’s so hard for him just to do a high five; his arm with stiff muscle can’t reach out to my hand. Now, thinking of him, I can’t watch this stuff and find it interesting. Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is.”

He said he would “never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all.”

“I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself,” he added.

Josh Weigensberg, a partner at the law firm Pryor Cashman, said that one question the Ghibli-style AI art raises is whether the AI model was trained on Miyazaki or Studio Ghibli’s work. That in turn “raises the question of, ‘Well, do they have a license or permission to do that training or not?’” he said.

OpenAI didn’t respond to a question Thursday about whether it had a license.

Weigensberg added that if a work was licensed for training, it might make sense for a company to permit this type of use. But if this type of use is happening without consent and compensation, he said, it could be “problematic.”

Weigensberg said that there is a general principle “at the 30,000-foot view” that “style” is not copyrightable. But sometimes, he said, what people are actually thinking of when they say “style” could be "more specific, discernible, discrete elements of a work of art,” he said.

“A ‘Howl’s Moving Castle' or ‘Spirited Away,’ you could freeze a frame in any of those films and point to specific things, and then look at the output of generative AI and see identical elements or substantially similar elements in that output,” he said. “Just stopping at, ‘Oh, well, style isn’t protectable under copyright law.’ That's not necessarily the end of the inquiry.”

Artist Karla Ortiz, who grew up watching Miyazaki’s movies and is suing other AI image generators for copyright infringement in a case that’s still pending, called it “another clear example of how companies like OpenAI just do not care about the work of artists and the livelihoods of artists.”

“That’s using Ghibli’s branding, their name, their work, their reputation, to promote (OpenAI) products,” Ortiz said. “It’s an insult. It’s exploitation.”

Ortiz was further enraged when President Donald Trump’s administration jumped into the meme trend Thursday, using the White House’s official X account to post a Ghibli-style image of a weeping woman from the Dominican Republic recently arrested by U.S. immigration agents. The White House and OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on how the image was made.

“To see something so brilliant, as wonderful as Miyazaki’s work be butchered to generate something so foul,” Ortiz wrote on social media, adding that she hoped Studio Ghibli sues “the hell out of” OpenAI for this.

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O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island. AP writer Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP’s text archives.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Noted economist Arthur Laffer warns in a new analysis that President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on auto imports could add $4,711 to the cost of a vehicle and says the proposed taxes could weaken the ability of U.S. automakers to compete with their foreign counterparts.

In the 21-page analysis obtained by The Associated Press, Laffer, whom Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019 for his contributions to economics, says the auto industry would be in a better position if the Republican president preserved the supply chain rules with Canada and Mexico from his own 2019 USMCA trade pact.

The White House has temporarily exempted auto and parts imports under the USMCA from the tariffs starting on April 3 so that the Trump administration can put together a process for taxing non-U.S. content in vehicles and parts that fall under the agreement.

“Without this exemption, the proposed tariff risks causing irreparable damage to the industry, contradicting the administration’s goals of strengthening U.S. manufacturing and economic stability,” Laffer writes in the analysis. “A 25% tariff would not only shrink, or possibly eliminate, profit margins for U.S. manufacturers but also weaken their ability to compete with international rivals.”

In a Friday interview with The Associated Press, Laffer said the report had caused a “kerfuffle” and cautioned that it only applied to the economics, rather than Trump's negotiating skills and strategic approach to trade.

“The report shows the economics of what would happen were the tariffs to be put in place," he said. "This is about facts, not how we feel.”

The economist was quick to also praise Trump as a negotiator who has deep knowledge of trade issues, indicating that the tariff threats could be used as they had during Trump's first term to ultimately lower barriers to trade and improve outcomes for the U.S. economy.

“Donald Trump is more familiar with the gains from trade than any politician I’ve ever talked to in my life,” Laffer said. ”Do not take this paper in any way, shape or form as criticizing Donald Trump and what his strategies are."

He added that he trusts the president and sees him as exceptionally competent.

While Trump’s tariff plans have frightened the stock market and U.S. consumers, Laffer's analysis and other reports show the possible economic risks if the threat of import taxes is unable to produce a durable set of deals with other countries. The paper reminds Trump that it’s not too late to change course, specifically complimenting the USMCA negotiated in his first term as a “significant achievement.”

“The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) has served as a cornerstone of President Trump’s first term and has quickly become a dominant feature of North American trade policy, fostering economic growth, stabilizing supply chains, and strengthening the U.S. auto industry,” Laffer writes.

The analysis says that the per vehicle cost without the USMCA exemption would be $4,711, but that figure would be a lower $2,765 if the exemptions were sustained.

Trump honored Laffer with the highest civilian honor 45 years after the economist famously sketched out on a napkin the Laffer curve, showing that there's an optimal tax rate for collecting revenue.

The bell-shaped curve indicated that there's a tax rate so high that it could be self-defeating for generating tax revenues. Many Republicans embraced the curve as evidence that lower tax rates could generate stronger growth that would lead to higher tax revenues.

“Dr. Laffer helped inspire, guide, and implement extraordinary economic reforms that recognize the power of human freedom and ingenuity to grow our economy and lift families out of poverty and into a really bright future,” Trump said in awarding him the medal.

Laffer served on the economic policy advisory board of President Ronald Reagan, in addition to being a university professor. He has his own economic consultancy, Laffer Associates. In 1970, he was the first chief economist of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Laffer also advised Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign and co-wrote a flattering book, “Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy.”

Trump maintains that 25% tariffs will cause more foreign and domestic automakers to expand production and open new factories in the United States. On Monday, he celebrated a planned $5.8 billion investment by South Korean automaker Hyundai to build a steel plant in Louisiana as evidence that his strategy would succeed.

Trump said the 25% auto tariffs would help to reduce the federal budget deficit while moving more production into the United States.

“For the most part, I think it’s going to lead cars to be made in one location,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “For right now, the car would be made here, sent to Canada, sent to Mexico, sent to all over the place. It’s ridiculous.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Another wipeout is swamping Wall Street Friday on worries about a potentially toxic mix of worsening inflation and a U.S. economy slowing because of households afraid to spend due to the global trade war.

The S&P 500 was down 2% in afternoon trading and on track for one of its worst days of the last two years. It's also heading for its fifth losing week in the last six after wiping out the last of its big gain from the start of the week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 719 points, or 1.7%, as of 2:25 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.6% lower.

Lululemon Athletica dropped 15.4% to lead the market lower, even though the seller of athletic apparel reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It warned that its revenue growth may slow this upcoming year, in part because “consumers are spending less due to increased concerns about inflation and the economy,” said CEO Calvin McDonald.

Oxford Industries, the company behind the Tommy Bahama and Lilly Pulitzer brands, likewise reported stronger results for the latest quarter than expected but still saw its stock fall 5.6%. CEO Tom Chubb said it saw a “deterioration in consumer sentiment that also weighed on demand” beginning in January, which accelerated into February.

They’re discouraging data points when one of the main worries hitting Wall Street is that President Donald Trump’s escalating tariffs may cause U.S. households and businesses to freeze their spending. Even if the tariffs end up being less painful than feared, all the uncertainty may filter into changed behaviors that hurt the economy.

A report on Friday morning showed all types of U.S. consumers are getting more pessimistic about their future finances. Two out of three expect unemployment to worsen in the year ahead, according to a survey by the University of Michigan. That's the highest reading since 2009, and it raises worries about a job market that's been the linchpin keeping the U.S. economy solid.

Another report released in the morning raised concerns after it showed a widely followed, underlying measure of inflation was a touch worse last month than economists expected. The data followed reports on other measures of inflation for the month, but this is the one the Federal Reserve tracks pays the most attention to as it decides what to do with interest rates.

The report also showed that an underlying measure of how much income Americans are making, which excludes government social benefits and some other items, “has been treading water for the last three months,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.

“Households aren’t in a good place to absorb a little tariff pain,” Jacobsen said. “The Fed isn’t likely to run to the rescue either as inflation moved up more than expected in February.”

The Fed has been keeping its main interest rate on hold this year after cutting it sharply in late 2024, in part because of worries about inflation remaining above its 2% target. While more cuts to rates would give the economy and financial markets a boost, they would also push upward on inflation.

The economy and job market have so far been holding up relatively well, but if they were to weaken while inflation stays high, it would produce a worst-case scenario called “stagflation.” Policy makers in Washington have few good tools to fix it.

Some of Wall Street's sharpest losses on Friday hit companies that need customers feeling confident enough to spend, and not just on yoga wear or beach clothes. Delta Air Lines lost 5.1%. Cruise operator Royal Caribbean Group fell 4.4%. Casino operator Caesars Entertainment dropped 5.1%.

The heaviest weights on the market were Microsoft and other Big Tech stocks, whose massive sizes give their movements more sway over indexes. They and other stocks that had gotten caught up in the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology have among the hardest hit in Wall Street's recent sell-off.

Their prices had shot up so much more quickly than their already fast-growing revenues and profits that critics said they looked too expensive. CoreWeave, whose cloud platform helps customers manage complex AI infrastructure, was bouncing between modest losses and gains in its first day of trading on the Nasdaq.

On the flip side, among the relatively few rising stocks on Wall Street were those that can make money almost regardless of what the economy does, such as utilities. American Water Works rose 2.1%, for example.

Stock markets worldwide will likely remain shaky as an April 2 deadline approaches for more tariffs. That’s what Trump has called “Liberation Day,” when he will roll out tariffs tailored to the United States’ trading partners. In each case, he said the “reciprocal” tariff will match the burden the other country places on the United States, including things like value-added taxes.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell sharply in Japan and South Korea as auto makers felt more pressure following Trump’s announcement that he plans to impose 25% tariffs on auto imports. Hyundai Motor fell 2.6% in Seoul, while Honda Motor fell 2.6%, and Toyota Motor sank 2.8% in Tokyo.

On Wall Street, Ford Motor fell 2.2%, and General Motors sank 1.5%. Even U.S. automakers selling vehicles in the country can feel the pain of such tariffs because their supply chains are spread throughout North America. Trump says he wants more manufacturing to take place within the United States.

Thailand’s SET lost 1% after a powerful earthquake centered in Myanmar rattled the region, causing the prime minister to declare a state of emergency for the capital, Bangkok.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury tumbled to 4.25% from 4.38% late Thursday. It tends to fall when expectations for either U.S. economic growth or inflation are on the wane.

___

AP Writers Jiang Junzhe and Matt Ott contributed.

NEW YORK (AP) — Charlie Javice, the charismatic founder of a startup company that claimed to be revolutionizing the way college students apply for financial aid, was convicted on Friday of defrauding one of the largest U.S. banks, JPMorgan Chase, out of $175 million by exaggerating her customer base by 10 times.

A jury in New York City returned its verdict after a five-week trial. Javice, 32, faces the possibility of a lengthy prison term. She appeared sullen at the defense table as the verdict was read. A lawyer placed her hand on Javice's back.

Javice was in her mid-20s when she founded Frank, a company with software that promised to simplify the process of filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a complex government form used by students to apply for aid for college or graduate school.

The company promoted itself as a way for financially needy students to obtain more aid faster, in return for a few hundred dollars in fees. Javice appeared regularly on cable news programs to boost Frank’s profile, once appearing on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list before JPMorgan bought the startup in 2021.

JPMorgan executives testified that she told them she had over four million clients and would have about 10 million by year’s end, but it turned out there were only about 300,000 customers.

Javice’s lawyer, Jose Baez, told the jury that JPMorgan knew what it was getting in the deal, and made up the fraud allegations due to buyer’s remorse after government regulatory changes made the data it received in the deal useless to its hopes of gaining new young customers.

Defense lawyers asked the judge to set aside the verdict, arguing the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the conviction. The judge said he would hear arguments on that at a later date, and sentencing was set for July 23.

Also convicted Friday was Olivier Amar, effectively the company’s No. 2 and who as chief growth and acquisition officer padded the customer list given to JPMorgan, according to prosecutors.

Javice was among a number of young tech executives who vaulted to fame and media accolades with supposedly disruptive or transformative companies, only to see their businesses collapse amid questions about whether they had engaged in puffery and fraud while dealing with investors.

She founded the company not long after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania’s business school, telling interviewers she was motivated to dive into helping college students connect with financial resources because of her own frustrations navigating the process of getting financial aid.

Frank’s financial backers included venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg. The company offered a product similar to online tax preparation software that it said could help students maximize their financial aid while making the application process much less painful.

JPMorgan was interested in acquiring Frank partly because of the potential it saw in the startup’s supposedly huge list of satisfied customers. The bank believed those young, future college graduates could potentially be sold on the idea of a lifelong partnership with the financial institution.

After buying the company, JPMorgan said it found evidence Javice had lied about her number of customers.

Frank’s chief of engineering, Patrick Vovor, testified at the trial that Javice had asked him to generate synthetic data to support her claim that the company had over 4 million users. At the time, JPMorgan was insisting on verification of the customers. Vovor said he refused her request.

“I told them I would not do anything illegal,” Vovor testified.

Defense lawyers attacked Vovor’s credibility during the trial, suggesting he was resentful that she didn’t want to date him, a claim he denied.

Prosecutors said Javice then paid a college friend $18,000 to use a computer program to create millions of fake names with pedigree information. The results were sent to a third-party data provider that JPMorgan hired to verify the number of customers, but the data provider never checked to ensure the people were real, testimony showed.

Baez said the bank knew what it was getting and the number of customers was in the hundreds of thousands rather than millions.

“JPMorgan is not telling the truth,” he said. “They knew the numbers.”

Javice, who lived in Miami Beach, Florida, had been free on $2 million bail since her arrest in 2023.

So you thought you could keep a secret? Well, now every secret encoded in your DNA is about to be sold to the highest bidder as the genetic testing company 23andMe goes into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Now the millions of people who paid $99 to check their DNA, hoping to learn about their ancestry, lost siblings, or hereditary disease, are wondering who’s now gonna know everything about them. Co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki, who took the company from nothing to a $6 billion valuation and back down to $14 million on Wednesday, said she’ll stay on as interim CEO and will mount her own third bid to buy the company, but this time the board of directors that nixed her first two lowball offers has itself resigned.

23andMe’s problems seem endemic to its business model: Faced with the realization that there’s no such thing as a recurring customer in this business (consumers have their DNA tested once, and unless they live near Chernobyl, their genetic makeup is unlikely to change), Wojcicki hoped to boost the firm’s fortunes by taking the DNA of its customers and using it to create wonder drugs. That failed—drug-making is expensive! That’s left the bank of 15 million-plus DNA samples in line to be sold.

Should 23andMe customers be worried? A company spokesperson told The Washington Post that it isn’t changing how it stores, manages, or protects customer data and that any buyer will have to comply with applicable privacy laws.

That’s left many privacy advocates unconvinced. “Delete, delete, delete,” Sara Geoghegan, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the Washington Post. “Consumers should delete their accounts while they still can.”

The question for 85% of customers should be; "Who else has my genomic data?"https://t.co/hW2mafyctU

• Dollar for dollar: Dollar Tree, the parent of both Family Dollar stores and its own Dollar Tree discount chain, says it’s selling the 7,600-store Family business to a pair of private equity funds for $1 billion. In 2015, Dollar Tree paid $8.5 billion for Family Dollar, but failed to make a go of it. Last year, the Tree vowed to shut 1,000 of the Family’s stores. Family Dollar lost $1.8 billion in the year that ended in January 2025. The new buyers are Brigade Capital Management and Macellum Capital Management. Meanwhile, Dollar Tree says it is winning over more higher-income shoppers as inflation keeps grocery prices high, but Trump tariffs will force it to raise some prices.
• Snow White blues? Disney’s $DIS live-action remake of Snow White drew a lower-than-expected $43 million in U.S. box office income in its first weekend, suggesting the Hose of Mouse’s film studio may still be waiting for a Prince Charming of a blockbuster to wake it from its slumber. Disney spent $300 million om the film, which was buffeted by everything from co-star Gal Gadot’s comments on the war in Gaza to angry onscreen attacks by real dwarves protesting their replacement by politically correct computer-generated images.

Imagine not giving seven great actors/actresses a chance! #snowwhite

• Just sell it? Nike says sales are gonna drop in the “low end” of “the midteens range,” in the current fiscal quarter, as the company faces a slew of problems: new models that didn’t fly with consumers, Trump tariffs, a slower-than-expected turnaround from some big restructuring moves, and drooping consumer confidence. Sales in the quarter ended Feb 28 were down 9%, and shares have lost 30% in the past year.
• Construction spike: Building contractors are hiking prices by as much as 20% in anticipation of Trump tariffs that would cover everything from Canadian lumber to Mexican sheetrock, according to Jon Paul Perez, CEO of developer Related Group. A recent survey by the National Association of Home Builders said higher prices for construction materials could add $9,200 to the cost of a typical home.
• Meme stocks gotta meme: Looks like GameStop just can’t stop the slide. The videogame retailer rose to prominence when loyal gamers mounted a populist charge against shortsellers back in 2021, costing the shorts hundreds of millions of dollars. But its stock has been dropping ever since, down about 70% from its peak. Now the company says it wants to put part of its $4.6 billion in cash reserves into Bitcoin as a way to make money, emulating a tech firm called MicroStrategy that boosted its share price the same way. “The problem with that thinking is MicroStrategy trades at about two times their Bitcoin holdings. If GameStop were to buy all Bitcoin with their $4.6 billion in cash and trade at two times, the stock would drop five bucks,” Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter told Yahoo Finance.

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The sturm und drang of tariffs and DOGE cuts, not to mention the Signal chat memes, is taking a whack at America’s productivity, and even as the short-term outlook for inflation remains reassuringly stable, medium-term inflation risks are growing. That’s because the turmoil is making everyone apprehensive, so they indulge in pre-inflationary behavior. Economist Greg Daco at Ernst & Young calls it “preemptive inflation anxiety,” and warns that through hoarding and stockpiling and cutting back spending, it could end up creating the very inflation it fears.

Meanwhile, The Conference Board reported that its Expectations Index—based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions—dropped 9.6 points to 65.2, the lowest level in 12 years and well below the threshold of 80 that usually signals a recession is coming. “Consumers’ optimism about future income—which had held up quite strongly in the past few months—largely vanished, suggesting worries about the economy and labor market have started to spread into consumers’ assessments of their personal situations,” said Conference Board senior economist Stephanie Guichard.

But there are also some real issues with rising prices. A 25% tariff on imported cars announced this week will raise the price not only of the half of cars sold in the U.S. that are made or assembled abroad, but probably of every other car, because they all use foreign parts. First NAFTA, and then Trump’s rejiggered NAFTA+, called USMCA, created a nearly tariff-free zone in North America, prompting carmakers to optimize prduction across the region. That cost savings is now gone, and it would take a decade or more to build capacity to make everything at home, and that’s only if companies believe Trump’s tariffs have any staying power.

The DOGE plan to stymie the IRS might sound great to small-govenment fans, but it could bring the country close to default as early as May—instead of a previous prediction of Septemebr—if the IRS fails to collect enough taxes to keep the government running. Then the debt ceiling will have to be raised, an uncertain prospect these days. (Treasury and IRS officials say they expect a 10% drop in the amount of tax collected, down from the $5.1 trillion collected last year.)

All that uncertainty has turned corporate CFOs glum. Average optimism among chief financial officers surveyed by the Fed and Duke University dropped from a pandemic era high of 66 out of 100 to 62.1 this quarter. The index had jumped 6 points on Trump’s election. The drop appears tied to rising concerns about tariffs and trade. The CFOs now anticipate slower growth and higher prices than they did at the end of last year.

Cashing in, again: Trump just can’t quit crypto. Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns the Truth Social platform, says it’s reached agrement with Crypto.com to launch a series of exchange-traded funds with a “Made in America” focus, and will launch after getting regulatory approval later this year. Donald Trump’s still its main shareholder, and shares in the company are down more than 65% in the past year. A Trump crypto coin, launched just before his inaurugration in January, has dropped from about $72 to just over $11, and now the company that launched it, World Liberty Financial, created by Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, says it plans to launch a Trump-identified stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar.

Inflation: The consumer price index, a key gauge of inflation, showed that prices rose by 2.8% in February from a year earlier, driven by price relief from airfares and gas, the Labor Department said Wednesday. That was cooler than the 3% annual gain reported for January.

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• Shouting at the TV: With Tesla shares down nearly 40% since Donald Trump’s inauguration, Musk took a swipe at protesters who’ve been setting Tesla cars alight, yelling during a Zoom call with employees, “This is psycho! Stop being psycho!” He also urged employees to “Hang on to your stock” at the late-night meeting last week. Musk says he’s still confident Tesla will one day conquer the world with fleets of self-driving cars, cybercabs, and robots doing manual labor. But competition from Alphabet’s Waymo driverless taxi service and Chinese carmakers is eclipsing Tesla’s self-driving technology.
• Trade-ins: Meanwhile, more Tesla owners traded in their cars this month than ever before, said auto-industry data provider Edmunds. “Shifts in Tesla consumer sentiment could create an opportunity for legacy automakers and EV startups to gain ground,” Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmunds, told CNBC.
• Regulatory trouble: Seems like Elon’s chainsaw didn’t slice away enough for the SEC: He received a summons last week in connection with the SEC’s lawsuit over his alleged failure to properly disclose purchases of Twitter stock in 2022 before he bought the company. The SEC alleges that not reporting his purchases for 10 days kept shareholders in the dark and allowed Musk to underpay for some shares by $150 million.
• Meanwhile, up north: Canadian authorities are holding back US$30 million in rebates to Canadian Tesla buyers while they investigate whether the rebates were obtained legally. Tesla sold 8,600 cars in three days out of four showrooms in Canada, equating to a car sold every two minutes.
• One bit of good news: Ad sales are up at X, said research firm Emarketer (but still below revenue when Musk bought X, then Twitter, in 2022). Ad revenue is expected to grow 17.5% to $1.31 billion in 2025, while global ad sales could rise 16.5% to $2.26 billion. Still, it’s not clear that brand value is driving the rise. “Some of this year’s growth is also being driven by fear. Many advertisers may view spending on X as a cost of doing business in order to mitigate potential legal or financial repercussions,” Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Emarketer, said in the report.

X’s ad business is recovering. But it will still be smaller in 2025 than when Musk acquired Twitter, per @eMarketer estimates. pic.twitter.com/f47pff3LLI

• One sure sign the economy is in turmoil: More than a quarter of all jobs in computer programming (not the same thing as software development) have been eliminated, according to Department of Labor data obtained by The Washington Post. The Post blames ChatGPT for taking over mundane programming tasks.
• Wake up! Remember Napster, the file-sharing system that shook up the music industry back in the last millennium and then died? Well, somehow, it just sold itself for $207 million. A 3D-tech company called Infinite Reality bought it, and says it plans to create virtual 3D spaces where music fans can listen to concerts or hold listening parties, and where musicians or labels can sell physical and virtual merchandise. Anyone remember Second Life?
• Maybe Shakespeare was right: When Donald Trump signed an executive order (of questionable enforceability) limiting the security clearances of attorneys at Paul, Weiss, a law firm that has represented his opponents, alarm bells sounded across the firm’s glass-walled conference rooms. Without security clearance, Paul, Weiss attorneys couldn’t represent top clients like Microsoft that have government contracts. The big question was whether Big Law would band together and tell Trump to get lost. That didn’t happen. Instead, as The New York Times reported, top Paul, Weiss attorneys got calls from rival firms, including Sullivan & Cromwell and Kirkland & Ellis, offering them prized partnerships if they left Paul Weiss. It’s a jungle out there.
• Buffett’s Madness Challenge: It took a decade, but a Berkshire Hathaway employee has finally won boss Warren Buffett’s promised $1 million prize for correctly guessing all but one of the March Madness first round winners. The unnamed winner got the first 29 games correct, and 11 runners up, who also picked 31 of 32 but who whiffed out earlier, each got $100,000. In 2014, Buffett, now 94, offered $1 billion to any employee who could correctly predict every single game in the tournament. No one’s taken home that prize. Yet.