Front Row at the Revolution

Payback: Trump Cut Putin Diesel Deal After Zelensky Ignored Six Pleas To Stop Refinery Strikes Friday's diesel deal between Trump and Putin wasn't only about diesel. It was also about Kyiv. Hours after Zelensky accused Washington of using Ukraine's negotiators as a "smokescreen" for a backroom deal with Moscow, Axios reported that Trump decided to let Russia sell diesel after Zelensky ignored half a dozen US requests to stop attacking Russian oil refineries. The alleged source was a US official with direct knowledge, who did not hold back: "Zelensky is misreading the...

Futures Tumble On AI Spending Fears As Brent Hits 2 Week High US equity futures are lower, dragged by tech, following a report that OpenAI missed revenue and user targets and there growing internal pushback against Sam Altman's notorious aggressive spending (the company has $1.5 trillion in commitment it won't be able to meet), which is hitting semiconductors and the broader supply chain. AS of 8:15am ET, S&P futures are down 0.7% and Nasdaq futures dropped 1.2% as concerns resurfaced over whether the vast amounts of investment in artificial intelligence will...

DeepSeek Resumes $74BN Mega-Raise - Then Warns It's Jacking-Up Prices Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is looking to raise roughly 50 billion yuan at a valuation of 500 billion yuan (US$74 billion) - while the company warned developers a day later that it's raising prices. The resumed funding round, first reported by Chinese business outlet Caijing (via The Standard), is expected to be signed by the end of the month, with the process kept deliberately quiet; some participating institutions reportedly haven't even been formally told the deal is back on. The pricing notice, posted...