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AI data centers need energy, and that’s what’s made the stock price of aptly-named NRG$NRG ( ▲ 1.18% ) rise 88% in the past year. As Google co-founder Eric Schmidt explained to the House Energy Committee in April, “Many people project demand for our industry will go from three percent to 99 percent of total generation: an additional 29 gigawatts by 2027 and 67 more gigawatts by 2030.”

That’s a lot of gigawatts!

This presumed, ahem, surge in demand for data center power has been pushing up energy stocks, as producers and utilities rush to bring new power sources online, from solar farms and natural gas generation to retired nuclear power plants.

Another firm, Constellation Energy $CEG, also plans to revive a surviving reactor at the infamous Three Mile Island, PA plant — which had a literal meltdown in 1979. The plan would give Microsoft $MSFT a steady stream of 835 megawatts of power for a nearby set of data centers. For context, that’s enough energy to power 700,000 homes.

But of the four national independent energy producers, only NRG is making a hedged bet: Instead of building more nuclear plants and exclusively signing single-shot contracts with utilities and data centers to take its power, Houston-based NRG is also expanding into the retail energy supply and energy trading business. That means it’s selling energy to customers who may be connected to a local utility’s cables, rather than wholesaling it to the local utility, or building a power plant next to a data center. With a mix of generating stations — NRG is acquiring several sets of gas-powered plants — NRG can sell power that it’s either generated from its own plants (mostly natural-gas powered, now) or that it’s bought on the electricity market, promising customers a steady supply at a steady rate on a 10-year contract.

“There’s general enthusiasm in the market for any type of power producer and retail energy supplier who will benefit from increased electricity demand from data centers, onshore manufacturing, and electric vehicles,” said Travis Miller, an energy strategist at Morningstar Securities Research. “Specifically for NRG, investors have caught up to the idea that a retail energy supply business could be just as attractive or even more attractive than a direct power generation business.”

Likewise, betting exclusively on AI growth might not be such a safe idea. A study by the MIT Technology Review showed the share of US electricity going to data centers could triple by 2028, from its current 4.4% to 12%. That’s not quite Schmidt’s 99%.

That’s where NRG’s bet-hedging strategy could pay off, says Miller. “We’re still in the very early stages of the data center expansion,” he said. “Who knows what the state of the tech industry is going to look like in two or three years?”

In the highly regulated energy industry, a battle between consumers and AI firms for a limited power supply could also end with power costs capped, killing profit margins, and the long-term risks may grow of either increased competition, flattening margins, or regulators putting the brakes on new power plants. “I think,” said Miller, “that the market might not appreciate the long-term risks.”

• Did Meta just concede it’s not smart enough? Mark Zuckerberg has a new plan to fight the Facebook blues. Meta $META is creating a new AI research lab pursuing “super-intelligence,” and has hired 28-year-old Alexandr Wang, the founder and CEO of start-up Scale AI, and may invest billions of dollars in his company. Meta has offered seven- to nine-figure comp packages to dozens of researchers at top AI firms, including OpenAI and Google $GOOG, the New York Times reports. Meta needs a boost. A survey released earlier this year by VPN Express showed 32% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 35% of 25- to 34-year-olds say they’ve significantly cut back time on the company’s various platforms. No word yet if Meta is recruiting on planet Krypton although that movie is coming out this summer and it sounds like it may have a similar budget to this company push.
• Is 27 > 23? While 23andMe $MEHCQ sits in bankruptcy court, likely to be sold with all of its 15 million customers’ genetic data to Regeneron $REGN, a pharma company that wants the data to develop new drugs. But the attorneys general of 27 states have told the court: “hold on.” In a suit filed Monday, the AGs say 23andMe needs to have new permission from each and every customer before their data is potentially sold. The company earlier claimed that 80% of customers would let their anonymized data be shared. It’s a rule familiar to every parent and schoolkid: No permission slip, no field trip! But without the data, the remains of 23andMe are essentially worthless. Hence the bankruptcy court.
• Warner heads for Splitsville: Warner Bros. Discovery $WBD CEO David Zaslav’s grand plan to combine two storied brands, WB and Discovery, into a powerhouse studio and streaming firm has failed. After losing about 60% of its market value since the April 2022 merger, Zaslav and WBD’s board have agreed to slice up the pie. The Warner movie studio, television production, HBO Max, and DC Studios will become “Streaming & Studios.” Cable channels CNN, TNT, Discovery and its European over-the-air networks will operate as “Global Networks.” The split will take about a year to complete. Zaslav’s strategy was that bigger is better, but beyond the decline of cable, the massive debt he amassed to pull off the deal and investors souring on the company’s future killed the share price. So what happens to Zaslav? For now, he runs the studios division, but as Slate’s Hollywood columnist Nitish Pahwa wrote, Zaslav is “all out of ideas.”
• It looks like you can spell Apple without “AI.” At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference this year, there was very little focus on new AI tools, and analysts are worried that without a giant, well-funded push into AI like, say, Meta’s, Apple $AAPL could fall far behind the pack. “The big risk is that you could have users go to ChatGPT or some other product that consumers become dependent on,” analyst Carolina Milanesi of Creative Strategies, told the New York Times. Or Apple could buy an AI company with its enormous cash pile. What do you think is more likely?
• Mickey’s got his Hulu hoop! Disney $DIS has now taken full control of Hulu from Comcast $CMCSA, ending a year-long dispute over how much Disney still owed for Comcast’s 33% stake on top of the $8.6 billion it’d already paid. Comcast wanted $5 billion more. They agreed on… $439 million. So: Disney won that argument. Comcast is now focused on its NBC-linked Peacock streaming service, which sounds a lot like it has taken its ball and gone home in a huff.
• Home Depot takes a hit: ICE raids on immigrant workers who gather outside Home Depot $HD outlets to offer their labor to contractors and homeowners are putting a dent in the construction supply retailer’s business. Day laborerrs have all but vanished from Home Depot parking lots across the nation, the Wall Street Journal reports. Home Depot’s share price is down 13% in the past six months. High interest rates are also killing new home sales, the biggest source of remodeling, says Morningstar analyst Jaime Katz.
• Coke on ICE: Coca-Cola $KO estimates that Latinos in the U.S. have about $2.1 trillion in spending power, but with the current immigration crackdown that’s hitting even legal residents and Latino U.S. citizens, say retailers, consumer brands, and restaurants. Latinos simply aren’t going out and spending. That’s a big chunk of the 3% drop in Coke’s North American sales in the first quarter, and the Wall Street Journal reports that Colgate-Palmolive $CL, Modelo brewer Constellation Brands $STZ and restaurant chains including Wingstop $WING and El Pollo Loco $LOCO over the past few months have told investors that a decrease in Latino spending is hurting their sales.

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• About that inflation. So where’s the big consumer price jump that the tariffs are supposed to deliver? With the CPI up only 2.4% in May over the year before (that’s up from 2.3% in April) consumers still aren’t feeling the pinch. Why? A few reasons: 1. Some prices, like housing and energy, have seen slowing demand or oversupply and haven’t been climbing as fast as they had been; 2. Despite the big tariffs, like 50% on imported steel, the overall effective rate on everything the U.S. imports right now is only about 6.7%; 3. Because wherever they could, businesses have been stockpiling imports. Still, the increase could still be coming. The average tariff rate surged from 2.5% at the end of 2024 to 25% in April and it has remained around 14% since mid-May. As E&Y Chief Economist Greg Daco notes, “we should prepare for a muggy summer of price increases,” predicting that CPI inflation will end the year around 3.1%.
• Serbian slip-up: Plans for Jared Kushner and the Trump boys, Eric and Don Jr., to build a Trump-branded luxury hotel in the Serbian capital Belgrade are in jeopardy, after Serbian preservationists said their boss’s decision to allow demolition on the site was illegal. Now the boss is under police investigation, and next up could be the country’s finance minister. The historic landmark that would have to come down is the wreckage of Serbia’s defense ministry headquarters, destroyed by a NATO cruise missile in 1999. Preservationists say the building should be adapted to a community use, and Mr. Kushner’s people told The New York Times that the deal is “under review.”
• Trump’s trade-talk tumble: It looks like China is holding all the cards in the current game of tariffs with President Trump. In the end, China’s control of the rare earths that the U.S. needs to make cars and planes, and even missiles and war jets, has won the day. China relaxed its restrictions on exports of those materials, and the U.S. agreed to roll back limits on exports of U.S. goods and technology, including airplane parts, and agreed not to restrict visas for Chinese students and workers. Still, it’s hard to call this a win. Tariffs on U.S.-China trade remain far above where they were before Trump took office, and making national security related tech exports part of the tariff tit-for-tat for the first time has extracted a “heavy price” from the U.S., former U.S. trade negotiator Wendy Cutler, now with the Asia Society, told the New York Times. “The U.S. has opened the door for China that will be difficult to close,” Cutler said. As for the rest of Trump’s tariffs, an appeals court in Washington said most of Trump’s tariffs could stay in place while it chews things over, even after the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled in May that Trump lacked the authority to impose those same tariffs. Whatever happens, the global economy is in trouble, says the World Bank, which blamed the tariffs for cutting the global growth forecast to 2.3% from a January forecast of 2.7%. Both are below 2024’s 2.8% growth. “Without a swift course correction, the harm to living standards could be deep,” World Bank Chief Economist Indermit Gill wrote. It’s even worse closer to home: The Bank cut its U.S. growth forecast in half, from the 2.8% it recorded for 2024, to 1.4%. More online sellers are blaming the tariffs as they do away with free shipping, seeking to recoup the costs of the import duties, the Wall Street Journal reports. One shipping analyst warned that a lack of free shipping is one of the biggest reasons shoppers abandon an online cart.
• AirBnDOGE? Now that Elon’s left town, who’s gonna keep up DOGE’s chainsawing of the American government? One name that keeps popping up is Joe Gebbia, the AirBnB $ABNB founder and Musk pal who’s been helping lead the ersatz agency. But Gebbia saw all the heat Musk took and wants none of it, the New York Times reports. Instead, there’s talk of a DOGE committee that would include Gebbia and investment banker Anthony Armstrong, who worked on Musk’s deal to buy Twitter. Why not start a sort of politburo model? It’s fascinating.

• Yale’s PE investments get a failing grade: Hammered by fears of Trump-led cuts to its funding and undersized returns on its investments in private equity, Yale University is looking to sell $6 billion in PE investments in a single deal. Yale was the pioneer of universities investing in high-risk, high-reward private equity, typically bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars to exclusive investments that would yield double-digit annualized payouts when the stakes were sold or the companies went public. But PE and venture capital firms have had a hard time getting out of their investments lately. According to PitchBook, PE returns have dropped from the mid-to-high teen percentage to about 10% from 2022 to 2024.
• Unplugging: Chinese EV battery maker Automotive Energy Supply Group said it is pulling the plug on construction of a $1.6 billion battery plant in South Carolina because of “economic uncertainty arising from current federal policy and tax issues.” The plant would have fed a BMW $BMW.DE factory nearby and employed about 1,600 people in red-state South Carolina. On the other hand, there’s apparently a melted-down nuclear plant in Pennsylvania that could be available for recommissioning (see the lead story, above).
• Boost’s bust? EchoStar $SATS, the owner of Boost Mobile (part of the former Sprint network) and Dish Network pay-TV isn’t spending money fast enough for the liking of Brendan Carr, President Donald Trump’s FCC commissioner, who told the company in May that some of its wireless and satellite spectrum rights are “under review.” EchoStar is considering filing for bankruptcy protection to sort it all out, but an FCC move to take back satellite spectrum could give Elon Musk’s SpaceX an opportunity to buy the spectrum.
• Ad drop: Global ad spending, expected to hit $1 trillion this year, will grow by only 6%, down from a December forecast of 7.7%, ad mega-agency WPP $WPP said, blaming trade restrictions and deglobalization. “If the current trajectory continues,” a WPP official said, “we do expect this to have a chilling effect on global advertising growth over the next five years.”

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• Sorry, not sorry? On Wednesday, Musk tweeted that he “regrets” some of his posts about Trump last week, when he called Trump’s budget bill a “pork-filled” “abomination.” It’s not clear why Musk started walking back his comments — including a deleted tweet that government files on the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking affair mention Trump — but Trump did say the best way to cut government spending was to start with Musk’s multi-billion-dollar SpaceX government contracts. As the late English ournalist A.A. Gill once wrote, “There are, for instance, a dozen inflections of the word sorry. Only one of them means ‘I’m sorry.’”
• Who’s that knocking at the door? The FBI and Homeland Security got so worried about the stream of foreign visitors at Musk’s properties in 2022 and 2023, many from Eastern Europe, that they began tracking the visitors, the Wall Street Journal reports. No charges were pressed, and the current status of the probe isn’t known. Musk has had access to sensitive government information through several of his companies, including SpaceX. In fact, the paper reports that officials at Musk’s AmericaPAC had to do extensive vetting to keep foreigners out of their efforts to support Trump. Musk has been in “regular contact” with Vladimir Putin since 2022, the Journal added.
• An offer they can’t refuse? A number of large companies that once advertised on Twitter, but pulled back as Musk’s antics tanked its audience and left many forms worried about brand safety, have had their arms twisted by X, and are now crying uncle to Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino. That’s because the X-team has threatened to sue advertisers including Ralph Lauren, Verizon, Amazon and Unilever, for allegedly illegally colluding with one another on an ad boycott, the Wall Street Journal reports. Despite his split with Trump, some advertisers told the Journal they feared Musk could still influence any lawsuit or prosecution.
• Heavenly unrest? Bolivia says it doesn’t want Starlink, and has refused to license the satellite internet provider in the country, despite the Andean nation’s creaky Internet service. Standing his ground for digital sovereignty, Iván Zambrana, director of the Bolivian Space Agency, told The New York Times, “it would be suicide to let them in without regulation.” He said Starlink’s technological edge would let it dominate the market, pushing out local operators. Meanwhile, United Airlines $UAL hit a big 404 with Starlink, turning satellite WiFi off for its passengers because of static interference. It said flight safety is not in danger.
• Are robotaxis really coming? In the latest promise from Tesla, Musk says self-driving Tesla $TSLA taxis wil “tentatively” start offering rides in Austin on June 22. Musk has staked Tesla’s future on self-driving vehicles, dropping plans to build a cheaper EV platform, and much of the company’s valuation hangs on that vision, Reuters reports. But, Musk said, the date could shift. “We are being super paranoid about safety,” he posted on X.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Billy Long of Missouri was confirmed on Thursday to lead the Internal Revenue Service, giving the beleaguered agency he once sought to abolish a permanent commissioner after months of acting leaders and massive staffing cuts that have threatened to derail next year’s tax filing season.

The Senate confirmed Long on a 53-44 vote despite Democrats’ concerns about the Republican’s past work for a firm that pitched a fraud-ridden coronavirus pandemic-era tax break and about campaign contributions he received after President Donald Trump nominated him to serve as IRS commissioner.

While in Congress, where he served from 2011 to 2023, Long sponsored legislation to get rid of the IRS, the agency he is now tasked with leading. A former auctioneer, Long has no background in tax administration.

Long will take over an IRS undergoing massive change, including layoffs and voluntary retirements of tens of thousands of workers and accusations that then-Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency mishandled sensitive taxpayer data. Unions and advocacy organizations have sued to block DOGE’s access to the information.

The IRS was one of the highest-profile agencies still without a Senate-confirmed leader. Before Long’s confirmation, the IRS shuffled through four acting leaders, including one who resigned over a deal between the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security to share immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another whose appointment led to a fight between Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

After leaving Congress to mount an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate, Long worked with a firm that distributed the pandemic-era employee retention tax credit. That tax credit program was eventually shut down after then-IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel determined that it was fraudulent.

Democrats called for a criminal investigation into Long’s connections to other alleged tax credit loopholes. The lawmakers allege that firms connected to Long duped investors into spending millions of dollars to purchase fake tax credits.

Long appeared before the Senate Finance Committee last month and denied any wrongdoing related to his involvement in the tax credit scheme.

Ahead of the confirmation vote, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles blasting the requisite FBI background check conducted on Long as a political appointee as inadequate.

“These issues were not adequately investigated,” Wyden wrote. “In fact, the FBI’s investigation, a process dictated by the White House, seemed designed to avoid substantively addressing any of these concerning public reports. It’s almost as if the FBI is unable to read the newspaper.”

Democratic lawmakers have also written to Long and his associated firms detailing concerns with what they call unusually timed contributions made to Long’s defunct 2022 Senate campaign committee shortly after Trump nominated him.

The IRS faces an uncertain future under Long. Tax experts have voiced concerns that the 2026 filing season could be hampered by the departure of so many tax collection workers. In April, The Associated Press reported that the IRS planned to cut as many as 20,000 staffers — up to 25% of the workforce. An IRS representative on Thursday confirmed the IRS had shed about that many workers but said the cuts amounted to approximately the same number of IRS jobs added under the Biden administration.

The fate of the Direct File program, the free electronic tax return filing system developed during President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, is also unclear. Republican lawmakers and commercial tax preparation companies had complained it was a waste of taxpayer money because free filing programs already exist, although they are hard to use. Long said during his confirmation hearing that it would be one of the first programs that come up for discussion if he were confirmed.

Long is not the only Trump appointee to support dismantling an agency he was assigned to manage.

Linda McMahon, the current education secretary, has repeatedly said she is trying to put herself out of a job by closing the federal department and transferring its work to the states. Rick Perry, Trump’s energy secretary during his first term, called for abolishing the Energy Department during his bid for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the Internal Revenue Service at https://apnews.com/hub/internal-revenue-service.

A London-bound Air India plane carrying more than 240 people crashed shortly after takeoff Thursday. Authorities said there were no known survivors.

It was not immediately clear why Air India flight 171, a Boeing 787-8, crashed into a residential area five minutes after taking off.

Boeing said it was aware of the reports of the crash and was “working to gather more information.”

It was the first fatal crash of a Boeing 787, a widebody, twin-engine plane known as the Dreamliner. But it’s the latest in a string of troubles for Boeing, most of them tied to the 737 Max, a different plane.

Here is a timeline of key events for Boeing in recent years:

December 2009: The 787 Dreamliner makes its first flight, taking off from Paine Field in Everett, Washington.

January 2013: 787s worldwide are grounded nearly three weeks after lithium ion batteries that are part of the planes led to a fire in one plane and smoke in a second.

August 2015: The first 737 Max plane rolls off the production line and within a year are undergoing flight tests.

Oct. 29, 2018: Lion Air Flight 610, a Boeing 737 Max 8, plunges into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Questions arise over a new Boeing flight-control system called MCAS that Boeing did not disclose to pilots and airlines. Indonesian investigators say the Flight 610 pilots struggled for control as the automated system pushed the nose of the plane down more than two dozen times.

March 1, 2019: Wall Street remains enamored with Boeing as commercial aircraft orders rocket. Shares of Boeing Co. close at an all-time high of $430.35.

March 10, 2019: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 Max 8, crashes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killing 157 passengers and crew members. Shares of Boeing begin a long, downward slide and have yet to recover.

March 2019: Within days of the second crash, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and regulators in nations around the world order the grounding of all 737 Max jets.

Dec. 23, 2019: Boeing ousts CEO Dennis Muilenburg, who was seen as pressuring the FAA to lift the Max grounding order.

Jan. 7, 2021: U.S. Justice Department charges Boeing with fraud but won’t prosecute the company for misleading regulators about the 737 Max if it pays a $2.5 billion settlement.

Jan. 5, 2024: A panel covering an unused emergency exit blows off a 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight. Pilots land the plane safely.

Feb. 26, 2024: A panel of outside experts, convened after the two deadly crashes, reports Boeing’s safety culture falls short despite the company’s efforts to fix it.

March 11, 2024: A LATAM Airlines Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner flight between Australia and New Zealand suddenly plunges, injuring 50 people. Boeing tells airlines to inspect switches on pilots’ seats after a published report said an accidental cockpit seat movement likely cause the rapid loss of altitude.

March 25, 2024: Dave Calhoun, who replaced Muilenburg, says he will step down as CEO by year-end as part of a broader shakeup of Boeing leadership.

July 7, 2024: Boeing agrees to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government for misleading regulators who approved pilot-training standards for the Max.

July 31, 2024: Boeing names Kelly Ortberg as its new chief executive. Ortberg is a trained engineer and was CEO of aerospace supplier Rockwell Collins for eight years. Many see his appointment as an attempt by Boeing to get back to its roots.

Sept 13, 2024: About 33,000 Boeing factory workers walk off the job in a strike that will cripple production at one of the preeminent manufacturers in the U.S. for almost two months. It is the first labor action taken against the company in 16 years.

May 23, 2025: The Justice Department reaches a deal with Boeing that takes criminal prosecution off the table for allegedly misleading regulators about the 737 Max jetliner before the two fatal planes crashes. Boeing agreed to pay or invest more than $1.1 billion, including an additional $445 million for crash victims’ families, removing the risk of a criminal conviction that would have jeopardized the company’s status as a federal contractor.

NEW YORK (AP) — A senior adviser to Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign is joining Coinbase’s global advisory council, which already includes several former U.S. senators and President Donald Trump’s ex-campaign manager, as the cryptocurrency exchange broadens its political reach.

David Plouffe, a top Democratic strategist best known as an architect of Barack Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign, is the latest addition to the council, joining as the cryptocurrency industry plays an increasingly prominent role in shaping fast-moving legislation in Congress.

The bipartisan involvement reflects how both parties see crypto holders as an important and growing base of potential swing voters they are eager to tap, as well as their efforts to shape — and profit from — the lucrative industry. It also shows the political heft the crypto industry now carries under Trump, with several Democrats and Republicans joining the company’s payroll in order for the company to influence policy how it wishes.

The crypto industry also was among the largest spenders in the 2024 election. A crypto super political action committee spent over $130 million in 2024 congressional races. Coinbase — the nation’s largest crypto exchange — was the super PAC’s biggest contributor.

The cryptocurrency industry’s bets are already paying dividends. Congress is now moving quickly to create a comprehensive framework for the regulation of digital assets amid a shift in Washington. Trump, a Republican, has pledged to make the U.S. the global capital of cryptocurrency, contrasting with what industry leaders viewed as a stifling regulatory approach under the previous Democratic administration. Americans may be soon able to invest in crypto in their retirement accounts, after Trump’s Secretary of Labor repealed a Biden administration’s guidance that said crypto may not be appropriate for 401ks and IRAs. President Joe Biden’s regulators had argued that extreme volatility of cryptocurrencies makes the asset class too risky for Americans trying to save long-term for retirement.

Regardless of how crypto has performed in the past, the ability for Americans to put their retirement funds, roughly $44 trillion in assets, into crypto will lead to billions of dollars in profits for the industry, if even a small portion of Americans put their assets into a cryptocurrency fund.

Trump and his family have also been aggressively expanding their personal business into almost every part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, including raising billions of dollars to buy bitcoin, creating a new stablecoin and launching and promoting a Trump-themed meme coin.

Trump addressed crypto enthusiasts at Coinbase’s policy conference in New York via video on Thursday, saying it’s “a really big honor” to be called the “first crypto president.”

“Congratulations to everyone at this exciting time for your industry and in our country’s life,” Trump said, to applause.

Chris LaCivita, the former co-campaign manager of Trump’s successful 2024 presidential bid, joined Coinbase’s advisory council in January.

LaCivita and Plouffe were interviewed Thursday at the policy conference in New York, where they talked about their efforts to court so-called “crypto voters” in the 2024 election. Both the Harris and Trump teams viewed the group as a new bloc of potential swing voters who were up for grabs. Coinbase chief policy officer Faryar Shirzad said the company met with both campaign to sell them on the potential.

LaCivita said Trump — who had once been a crypto skeptic — quickly came around, with the help of input from his sons Barron Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

“The newness of it I think was exciting, from the president’s standpoint,” said LaCivita. “It didn’t take really a lot.”

The campaign, he said, also saw an opportunity to engage with a swath of voters who may not have been actively engaged with politics in the past, including Black and younger voters, with whom the Republican Party has struggled in the past.

“It gave us an opportunity to establish common ground with an area and a demographic that we need expand in in order to be successful,” he said. “This was one of those just great growth opportunities in politics,” which he said are “few and far between.”

Plouffe said the Harris campaign had reached the same conclusion and argued the group is only growing.

“The folks who own crypto are pretty politically competitive,” he said. “These are not MAGA voters. They are swing voters. Lean a little Democratic, certainly lean a lot younger.”

Both were also bullish on their party’s chances in next year’s midterm elections. Plouffe stressed the party out of power generally has an edge. He acknowledged that the Democratic Party “has a lot of work to do on its brand” after their disappointing finish last year, but said he hoped “that’s going to come from the people who run and from the grassroots together.”

LaCivita said the goal for Trump would be to demonstrate to voters that he is delivering on his campaign promises.

Plouffe, who previously served on the global advisory board for Binance, joins a council that also includes former Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat-turned-independent. The role of advisers is to be a “sound board” to discuss policy efforts and business strategy, said Faryar Shirzad, Coinbase’s chief policy officer.

In Congress, legislation is advancing far more quickly than usual for a new industry — a pace that some involved in shaping the bills say comes amid an all-out pressure campaign from the cryptocurrency sector.

On Wednesday, a group of Democrats joined the Republican majority to advance legislation regulating stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency typically pegged to the U.S. dollar. Final passage through the Senate could come next week.

Meanwhile, a more sweeping bill to implement cryptocurrency market structure has begun moving through House committees.

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Cappelletti reported from Washington.

NEW YORK (AP) — A man who says he was kidnapped by two crypto investors for his Bitcoin was seen in photos and videos “laughing and smiling” and moving about Manhattan freely during the days he claimed he was held captive and tortured, lawyers for the two suspects said in court Wednesday.

William Duplessie, 32, and John Woeltz, 37, pleaded not guilty and were ordered held in custody until their next court date on July 15. Prosecutors argue the man was clearly in distress because he ran barefoot and bloodied to the nearest police officer after escaping 17 days in captivity.

However, Duplessie’s lawyer said Wednesday that videos show the accuser participating in group sex and smoking crack cocaine while “laughing and smiling the whole time.” In other photos, Sam Talkin said, the accuser is seen visiting an eyeglass store with one of the defendants and could have fled or sought help at any time.

“The story that he is selling doesn’t make sense,” Talkin said in Manhattan criminal court as the defendants were formally arraigned.

Woeltz’s lawyer Wayne Gosnell added that witnesses told him the accuser came and went as he pleased from the upscale town house where he says he was held — going to church, clubs and dinners.

The accuser, a 28-year-old Italian national, has not been named by officials. Prosecutors say the defendants have known him personally for years.

In court Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Sarah Khan argued that someone who supports the defendants was selectively leaking videos to present a counternarrative of the events.

In reality, she said, the accuser was constantly watched, was not permitted to leave the house without being guarded and was subjected to violence, including being pistol whipped and cut with a small chain saw.

The defendants also took photos of the man various poses and acts to create the impression that he was not being held against his will, Khan said.

Police searching the town house found evidence corroborating his story, including a loaded pistol, chain saw and other instruments purportedly used to torture him.

They also located photographs, including one where the defendants point a gun to the accuser’s head, another where the accuser is tied to wheelchair, and still another showing the accuser being set on fire.

When prodded by the judge, Khan explained that the man didn’t actually sustain any burn injuries because the defendants would quickly douse the flames, sometimes by urinating on him.

What’s more, she said, prosecutors believe this is not the first time the defendants have held a person against their will. They are aware of two other potential victims in two other locations, according to Khan.

Lawyers for the two men, meanwhile, sought their release on $1 million bail and home confinement with their parents. They rejected suggestions from prosecutors that their clients could flee the country.

“He’s so far from a flight risk here. He’s ready to fight this case. He’s not going anywhere,” Talkin said of Duplessie.

The two appeared handcuffed in prison uniforms and didn’t speak in court other than to formally enter their pleas.

They are charged with kidnapping, assault, unlawful imprisonment and criminal possession of a weapon and face up to life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors say on May 6, the two men lured the victim to a town house in Manhattan’s posh SoHo neighborhood by threatening to kill his family.

The man said the two investors tormented him with electrical wires, forced him to smoke from a crack pipe and at one point dangled him from a staircase five stories high.

The man said he eventually agreed to hand over his computer password, then managed to flee as his captors went to retrieve the device.

Khan said Wednesday that last month’s kidnapping was at least the third instance in which the two had convinced the man to meet them in person, only to threaten him and take his electronic devices in order to obtain his cryptocurrency.

To date, she said, he hasn’t received his money or electronic devices back.

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Follow Philip Marcelo on X: @philmarcelo.