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Economy
‘Big Jump in Grocery Prices’ Highlights How Trump’s Iran War Kept Hammering Consumers in October
"The average real wage—what your paycheck buys—is falling," said one economist.
Nov 10, 2026
The impact of President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran continued to hit US consumers hard in October, with the price of groceries experiencing a particularly notable spike.
The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released on Tuesday shows that overall prices increased by 0.4% in October, higher than economists' expectations of a 0.3% increase.
Core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, showed a monthly increase of 0.3%, which was also higher than economists' expectations of a 0.2% increase.
The CPI report doesn't include estimates of yearly price increases, as the BLS last October didn't collect any price data during a government shutdown.
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, estimated in a social media post that the data released by BLS "implies about a ~4% inflation rate for the past year."
Long highlighted a "a big jump in grocery prices" in the report, while also noting that "eating out, electricity, transportation (especially airfares), rent, and medical services (especially hospitals)" all saw "sizable monthly price increases." Analysts have noted that Trump’s Iran war is increasing costs across the economy, including food prices, by jacking up fuel and fertilizer expenses.
Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, posted a chart showing that real wage growth has been in decline in the seven months since Trump launched his illegal war without congressional authorization in February.
Zipperer also mused that the decline in workers' earning power may have "something to do with the recent election results," in which Democrats ousted Trump's Republicans as the majority party in both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate starting in January.
Maybe something to do with the recent election results:
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— Ben Zipperer (@benzipperer.org) November 10, 2026 at 9:56 AM
University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers observed that real wage growth is now flat throughout Trump's second term, with prices really picking up steam at the start of the Iran War.
"The average real wage—what your paycheck buys—is falling," Wolfers wrote. "That's the sense in which it might feel like you're falling behind. It's not meant to work this way."
The latest inflation report was so ugly that even National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, who has been widely criticized for spinning bad data into an implausibly sunny narrative, couldn't paint a rosy picture during a Tuesday interview with Fox Business.
"It's a disappointing report," Hassett acknowledged. "Energy prices in the CPI are up 20% year-over-year, and gasoline prices are up 37% year-over-year... right now, the trickle down from the higher energy prices is definitely very palpable in the data."
🤯 even Hassett can't spin hotter than expected inflation data: "It's a disappointing report ... things have accelerated over the last three months ... the trickle down from higher energy prices is definitely very palpable in the data" https://t.co/yiIylq1mT5
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 10, 2026
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is facing calls to step aside as Senate Democratic leader before his party takes over as the majority next year, said the latest CPI report showed "why Americans chose Democrats to be in charge."
"From his costly tariffs to his reckless war, Trump has only made inflation worse," said Schumer. "And he openly admits he doesn’t care. Our Senate Democratic majority will work relentlessly to bring down costs for all Americans."
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'Should Set Off Every Alarm Bell': Trump DOJ Cleared Merger After Company Donated to Melania Trump Initiative
"The next Congress has a responsibility to take these sorts of transactions seriously and root out the blatant corruption that has allowed America to turn into an oligarchy."
Nov 09, 2026
The American Economic Liberties Project on Monday called on the US Congress and state attorneys general to investigate the US Department of Justice's decision last week to abruptly end its probe into the proposed merger between Fox Corporation and TV streaming company Roku.
In a Friday announcement, the DOJ said that its investigation found it was "unlikely" that a Fox-Roku merger would pose "a substantial risk of harm to competition" in the TV streaming market.
The DOJ also said it was satisfied with Fox's pledge to keep Roku "an open and neutral content partner," noting that the media giant "would suffer monetary and reputational harm if it attempted to use the Roku platform to harm Fox's content rivals."
Although earlier reporting claimed that the DOJ would approve the Fox-Roku merger under a consent decree, the department instead signed off on it "with a simple affirmative press statement outlining commitments from Fox, several of which expire in just three years, and leaving the conditions without any judicial enforcement mechanism attached," explained the American Economic Liberties Project.
Additionally, the group pointed out that the DOJ's decision to end its merger investigation came just weeks after Fox made a $1 million contribution to First Lady Melania Trump's "Fostering the Future" initiative, a scholarship program aimed at helping foster children attend college.
“It should set off every alarm bell that the Fox Corporation is giving any money to the first lady’s foster care initiative during the Justice Department’s review of its Roku deal,” said Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. "This is part of a documented pattern, where big media corporations curry favor with the administration, via donations and promises of favorable coverage, and then deals get done."
Hepner added that the DOJ's decision to sign off on the deal was part of a broader pattern of corporate consolidation and corruption under the second Trump administration.
“The next Congress has a responsibility to take these sorts of transactions seriously," he said, "and root out the blatant corruption that has allowed America to turn into an oligarchy, where power keeps getting consolidated at a remarkable rate."
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'The President's Answer Here Is Nonsense': Forbes Reporter Debunks Trump Lies About $3 Billion Wealth Surge
"All this dealmaking leads to staggering amounts of cash."
Nov 09, 2026
Forbes reporter Dan Alexander on Sunday thoroughly debunked claims made by President Donald Trump that his net worth grew by $3 billion since his return to office solely due to gains in the stock market.
During an interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes," Trump was asked by Ross Douthat about a Forbes estimate showing that Trump's net worth had grown from $3.9 billion in 2024 to $7 billion in 2026.
"Your net worth went up by $3 billion..." Douthat began.
"So did everyone's!" Trump replied.
Ross Douthat asks the President how his net worth rose by nearly $3 billion, according to a Forbes estimate, since he returned to office. Watch the interview Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT on 60 Minutes.
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— 60 Minutes (@60minutes.bsky.social) November 8, 2026 at 10:37 AM
"My net worth did not go up by $3 billion," Douthat shot back.
"Well, you should have had stock," Trump said.
Trump then claimed that he didn't pay too much attention to his net worth and said, "I guess it's gone up" over the last two years.
Alexander responded to Trump's claims in a social media post, giving detailed breakdown of how Trump's net worth grew by $3 billion, and emphasizing that "the president's answer here is nonsense."
Alexander began the story in 2024, when Trump grew his net worth by $1.8 billion while running for president when the Trump Media and Technology Group became a publicly traded company after a merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp.
The Forbes reporter emphasized that this was just the start of Trump's political profiteering, which he would really kick into high gear in the latter half of 2024.
"Just before the election, Trump kicked off a venture named World Liberty Financial, selling a crypto token and offering vague promises of a 'financial revolution,'" Alexander explained. "For Trump, the proposition was clearer: a 52.5% cut of every dollar investors put in after the initial $30 million."
Twenty days after Trump's triumph in the election, Chinese billionaire Justin Sun invested $30 million into World Liberty Financial, which ensured that the Trump family "would collect," wrote Alexander.
"The crypto community went wild, and money started pouring in, especially as the inauguration approached," Alexander continued. "One day before Trump took office, Sun announced another $45 million investment."
During this period, Trump also launched his official meme coin, which quickly shot up in value before crashing back down, leaving most of its investors billions of dollars underwater.
Alexander noted that foreign investments into World Liberty Financial continued pouring in after the election, especially from firms located in the United Arab Emirates.
The Wall Street Journal would later report that many of these investments were made by associates of an Abu Dhabi royal family member who "secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49% stake in their fledgling cryptocurrency venture for" $500 million.
"All this dealmaking leads to staggering amounts of cash by the end of 2025," Alexander explained, with World Liberty Financial and the Trump meme coin producing "$1,425,000,000 of liquidity... in one year."
In addition to crypto schemes, Trump also vastly expanded his overseas licensing empire, which in 2025 generated 10 times more income than it did just two years prior, Alexander wrote.
Summing up his findings, Alexander wrote that Trump over the last two years had made $1 billion off World Liberty Financial dealings, $1 billion from the sale of crypto tokens, $400 million in branding ventures, and $500 million after an appeals court wiped out a fine he had been ordered to pay as part of a civil financial fraud case.
This means that Trump's vast enrichment over the last two years has come from his own personal business dealings, not just gains in the stock market.
"In fact, almost none of Trump's $3 billion in gains from the fall of 2024 to the fall of 2025 came from stock," wrote Alexander. "In the fall of 2024, we estimated that the president's liquid assets totaled about $415 million. After analyzing his financial disclosure, we pegged about 10% of that in stock."
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'We Need to Realize How Powerful We Are’: Workers Across France Strike Over Austerity Budget
"People just want to live, not survive," said one organizer.
Nov 05, 2026
Hundreds of thousands of workers across France held demonstrations to protest the high cost of living and the French government's proposed budget that includes a number of austerity measures.
As reported by Euronews, the government of French President Emmanuel Macron is attempting to pass a budget that has been decried by major trade unions for "targeting the most vulnerable and those who are ill, freezing social benefits, and undermining the protective role of the social security system."
Sophie Binet, head of the General Confederation of Labor, acknowledged the need to curb the country's budget deficit, but told Euronews that "we need to reintroduce taxes on the wealthiest individuals and the largest companies," which "will enable us to fund our public services."
The French Interior Ministry estimated that 600,000 people attended Thursday's demonstrations, which took place across 180 different locations, according to Bloomberg.
The Ministry of Public Action and Accounts estimated that nearly 10% of French public servants were on strike Thursday, including almost 16% of all teachers, according to The New York Times.
The nationwide protests began in September when students blockaded their schools to protest staffing shortages, dilapidated buildings, and a widely criticized university application system.
They have since spread to encompass a wide range of grievances in the country, including the cost of living and the high cost of fuel sparked by US President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran.
While earlier demonstrations had been marked by violent unrest, Thursday's protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, and included a festive performance from the Orchestre du Nouveau Monde in Paris.
« J'ai deux passions ! »Ambiance festive pour le concert géant de l'orchestre du Nouveau Monde sur la Place de la République à Paris.#grevegenerale #5Novembre #greve5novembre https://t.co/A5KhOjGxmN
— Luc Auffret (@LucAuffret) November 5, 2026
In an interview with the Times, 27-year-old Antonia Barot said that she attended the Thursday protests because of the government's "disregard for young people's and workers' living conditions," adding that "we need to realize how powerful we are."
Florence Eliakine, 61, told the Times the protests should "make it clear to our government, which pursues right-wing policies, that there is a social and ecological crisis that must be taken into account."
Gaëlle Martinez, national secretary of the trade union Solidaires, told France 24 that the motive behind the demonstrations was a simple one.
"People just want to live, not survive," Martinez explained.
She also said that the government needed to draft "a new budget" that would "tax the biggest companies, the richest companies where the profits are made," while eliminating proposed cuts to vital programs.
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‘This Is Evil’: Critics Hammer Google Plan to Shut Off Search Access for Schools That Reject Its AI
"This highlights the danger of allowing an unregulated monopolist to control an essential service," said former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan.
Nov 03, 2026
Tech giant Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is telling US schools that there's a price to be paid for restricting student access to its artificial intelligence tools.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that, starting early next year, schools that fully disable the company's AI will also lose access to its search engine, which is by far the most used internet search tool in the world.
Chris Phillips, vice president for education at Google, justified the policy by claiming that "Search and AI are deeply integrated," adding that students attending schools where AI is banned "will not have access to Search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available."
As the Times noted, Google has deeply integrated itself into US classrooms, many of which rely on its Classroom assignment platform and equip students with low-cost Chromebook laptops.
"The company’s new strategy underscores Google’s powerful role in American education," the Times explained. "If school leaders want continued student access to Search within the company’s ecosystem, they will be forced to embrace Google's AI."
Schools around the US have been banning the use of AI for young students over concerns that reliance on the technology will hinder the development of critical thinking skills and also enable mass cheating on assignments.
Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at the University of Southern California, told the Times that he expects Google's new policy linking AI and Search will only add more fuel to the backlash against the tech industry.
"This is a particularly clear example of the tech industry going out of its way to force AI on us all," said Polikoff, "even if we have said we don’t want it."
Lina Khan, former chair of the Federal Trade Commission under President Joe Biden, accused Google of "using its search monopoly to coerce schools into adopting AI," and said it was yet another reason why antitrust action should be taken against the company.
"This highlights the danger of allowing an unregulated monopolist to control an essential service," Khan wrote in a social media post. "Multiple courts have found Google liable for violating antitrust laws, and this latest move shows it remains unchastened. As the public increasingly pushes back against the use of AI in schools, Google is making clear it will punish those who don’t fall in line."
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose city earlier this year banned AI in elementary and middle schools, similarly took Google to task for trying to force its products onto students.
"No corporation should have the power to dictate how we teach our children," Mamdani wrote. "Our public schools exist to serve students, not to grow the profit margins of Big Tech."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) used news of Google's new AI school policy to take a shot at President Donald Trump, who has constantly downplayed the need for any regulation of the industry.
"President Trump claimed that AI oligarchs could regulate themselves because they 'love our country,'" Sanders wrote. "Now, Google is threatening schools: If you stop your students from using AI, we will cut off your access to Google Search. That’s not love. That’s extortion."
Cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, a longtime skeptic of the AI industry, responded to Google's move by writing, "This is evil."
Author Kashana Cauley remarked that Google's motto used to be "don't be evil," whereas today its motto appears to be, "We are now holding your kids and their schools hostage."
Cauley added that schools wouldn't be in this position if they hadn't taken up Google's offer to supply low-cost Chromebooks for students.
"The schools shouldn’t be beholden to district-wide Chromebook deals if Google is holding us hostage," she wrote. "We need to get Chromebooks and Google out of the schools."
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Naomi Klein and Illana Glaser Have a Message: Tax the Billionaires and Block Big Tech IPOs
"We cannot let the billionaire class take these kinds of risks with our future."
Nov 02, 2026
Progressive author Naomi Klein and comedian Ilana Glazer on Monday warned that America's billionaire class is taking "unprecedented risks with our future," and said US policymakers must block further Big Tech initial public offerings and mergers to prevent even more damage from occurring.
In an op-ed published by The Guardian, Klein and Glazer outlined how US billionaires have used tax loopholes, corporate mergers, and IPOs to enrich themselves at an unprecedented scale, as their wealth has grown by an estimated 40% over just the last two years.
Klein and Glazer argued that the upcoming IPOs of artificial intelligence giants OpenAI and Anthropic could be particularly risky to the economy given questions about their ability to be consistently profitable.
"It’s no secret that the AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI are intending to go public in the near future," they wrote. "Both of these players also had major security flaws exposed recently, and openly acknowledge mind-bogglingly huge amounts of debt."
The risk will only grow, they added, if Nasdaq grants OpenAI and Anthropic the same exception it granted to Elon Musk's SpaceX earlier this year by allowing their shares to be immediately included in index funds without having to wait through the one-year "seasoning" period.
"June’s highly contentious SpaceX IPO already carries great risk for regular investors," they explained. "If more speculative tech companies with staggering risk profiles are allowed to follow suit, the results will become too much for the market to bear."
Klein and Glazer said that policymakers need to intervene to put a halt to new Big Tech IPOs, and also pass a wealth tax to take away billionaires' power to spend cavalierly even as they leave working people potentially holding the bag for their failed investments.
"We cannot let the billionaire class take these kinds of risks with our future," they emphasized. "To stop these reckless IPOs we must stand together, take collective action, and push for real change."
Economist Jeffrey D. Sachs last month similarly called for AI IPOs to be halted until Congress "has enacted a public system of licensing, independent safety evaluation, liability, and financial backstops for frontier AI."
Sachs noted that Anthropic executives and employees, including CEO Dario Amodei, have warned that AI could pose a threat to all human life, and he questioned why the creators of such technology should become unfathomably wealthy before such risks are understood and eliminated.
"A company should not disclose a risk of catastrophe to humanity and then sell its shares to the public before any public authority has the power to evaluate that risk or to stop deployment," argued Sachs. "In fact, to proceed rapidly in the face of such dire warnings is beyond folly."
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Not Just Food and Fuel—Inflation Numbers Show 'Worrying Trends' as Midterms Loom
With inflation climbing to 3.6%, "instead of focusing on delivering lower prices, Trump is touting Big Oil's Iran War windfall."
Oct 29, 2026
Less than a week before the US midterm elections in which voters may end Republican control of Congress, the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday released inflation data highlighting the nation's persistent affordability crisis under GOP leaders, including President Donald Trump.
In September, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index rose 3.6% from a year ago, up from 3.4% in August, according to the BEA. Core PCE strips out food and energy prices, the latter of which has soared as Trump has waged an illegal war on Iran. That increased 3.1%, up from 3% the previous month.
The "bottom line," said Navy Federal Credit Union chief economist Heather Long, is that "inflation is back near a three-year high."
"It's largely due to war in Iran, but there's legitimate concern that inflation is spreading beyond energy," the economist explained. Referencing the "core" figure, she noted some "worrying trends."
Long pointed to a "big rise in goods prices" that "is largely driven by Trump's tariffs (big move up since 2025) and now war."
The expert also noted that "service sector inflation is picking up again."
She further observed that "rent prices are no longer improving" and housing inflation is "moving sideways."
The inflation update comes just days after the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers announced last week that its Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 48 this month, nearing the record low of 44.8 from this past May, and Trump celebrated fossil fuel industry profits from his war during a weekend campaign rally in Georgia.
Trump told the crowd he was advised against highlighting how the industry—which helped him get elected two years ago and in which he is significantly invested—is "making hundreds of billions of dollars," given that "people are paying a little higher" for gasoline and diesel.
"I can just see the fake headlines," he said. "President Trump is talking about all the money they're making while people are suffering at the pump. That will be the headline. But I said, I don't give a damn, I'm going to say it: We're making a freaking fortune."
As of Thursday, the national average for a gallon of gasoline was $4.23 and $6.33 for diesel. The Climate Solutions Lab at Brown University estimates US residents have paid at least $81.1 billion more for gas and $65.9 billion for diesel, or a total of $147 billion. That's over $619 per household, for just gas.
Some estimates are even higher. A Monday report from Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee states that US households "have now spent an additional $101 billion on gasoline since the start of the Iran War, or an average of $856 in gas costs per family."
Meanwhile, oil giants Shell and TotalEnergies announced their sizable third-quarter profits on Thursday, and companies such as BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil are expected to follow suit on Friday.
"Inflation remains high, working families are paying $4.23 at the pump, and meager pay raises aren’t keeping up with rising prices," Alex Jacquez, a former Obama administration official who is now senior vice president of policy, advocacy, and research at Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement.
"Instead of focusing on delivering lower prices, Trump is touting Big Oil's Iran War windfall," Jacquez stressed. "Skyrocketing prices and economic growth largely driven by AI spending do not add up to an economy that works for working families."
Democrats in Congress have seized on cost-of-living concerns ahead of the midterms, including Sen. Ed Markey, who is up for reelection in Massachusetts. He said Thursday that "inflation is up. Margins are tighter."
"Prices are skyrocketing—and small business owners are on the frontlines of Trump's war on Main Street," Markey added. "Small businesses and workers should not have to bear the costs of Trump's reckless economic policies."
This article has been updated to credit the Climate Solutions Lab at Brown University for its fuel cost tracker.
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'We Cannot Let History Repeat Itself': Progressive US Lawmakers Oppose AI Bailouts
"The House Progressive Caucus is ready for the collapse of the AI bubble. The rest of us should be also," said one economist.
Oct 28, 2026
As a progressive US senator warned Wednesday that Anthropic going public could leave "Americans holding the bag" if the artificial intelligence bubble bursts, The American Prospect revealed that key Democrats in the House of Representatives have crafted a resolution opposing federal bailouts for AI giants like the ones "too-big-to-fail banks" got nearly two decades ago.
The seven-page resolution obtained by Prospect executive editor David Dayen frames the 2008 global financial crisis as a result of "profit-driven financial risk-taking, fueled by Wall Street's speculative fervor and unleashed by years of zealous deregulation," as well as an example of what not to do when it comes to the booming AI sector.
"The economic harm of a multitrillion-dollar housing bubble caused by predatory lending, reckless financialization and securitization, and off-balance-sheet lending led to a massive surge in layoffs, with the unemployment rate hitting almost 10% at the trough of the Great Recession in 2009," the seven-page measure recalls. "The weak labor market persisted for nearly a decade."
Now, AI firms "hold trillions of dollars in debt, much of which is raised in opaque and unregulated private credit markets," the resolution continues. Financing terms of many "data centers as well as the costs and revenues of major artificial intelligence firms are not publicly available and... corporate borrowing to fund data center investments are multiples higher than projected revenues."
AI-related stock prices "have inflated even more than the tech giants of the 1990s," the measure notes, warning that "a collapse of an artificial intelligence bubble could have serious consequences for the economy, similar if not more significant than the end of the 1990s tech bubble or the 2008 global financial crisis."
Thus, it argues, "Congress must refuse to provide any additional funds or exceptional regulatory support to companies or financial institutions facing insolvency or financial collapse due to exposures to acute stress within the artificial intelligence market and must provide support to all harmed Americans instead."
While politicians from both parties have been ripped for their ties to Big Tech and AI specifically, the resolution explicitly calls out related failures under Republican President Donald Trump, who recently gathered industry leaders at the White House to sign a "self-policing" accord that critics said was "as dangerous as it is absurd."
House progressives' measure points out that "federal regulators have avoided applying robust scrutiny and oversight regarding enormously complicated debt and equity schemes used by artificial intelligence firms or the circular financing mechanisms involved" in the AI data center build-out.
Additionally, "the White House's artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar was personally invested in at least 449
companies" tied to AI "while pushing to eliminate government obstacles," the resolution says, "reflecting the administration's broad deregulatory focus and conflicts of interest" when it comes to this industry.
The House Progressive Caucus is ready for the collapse of the AI bubble. The rest of us should be also. No bailouts for the AI billionaires prospect.org/2026/10/28/h...
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— Dean Baker (@deanbaker13.bsky.social) October 28, 2026 at 7:53 AM
Though the resolution has not yet been introduced, Dayen reported on it less than a week before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the remainder of Trump's second term. It's spearheaded by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) and House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.).
"Big Tech and Wall Street are taking enormous risks with billions in borrowed money to fuel the AI boom, despite growing warning signs of a dangerous bubble," Waters told him. "We cannot let history repeat itself. The American people should never again be forced to foot the bill for billionaires' reckless bets."
Casar, a 37-year-old former labor organizer, highlighted that "many of us, myself included, came into political life watching as many people who caused the crisis in 2008 or cheered it on weren't held accountable."
"We know that the American people were appalled at these Wall Street executives nearly two decades ago, and they're even more pissed off at these tech oligarchs today. We shouldn't be trying to make them whole," said the congressman, who also leads the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Polling released this past summer by Data for Progress found that among the "bad actors" Americans blame for the country’s concerning conditions, billionaires rank No. 1, but AI companies and social media giants are in the top 10.
The progressives' proposal "is a nonbinding 'sense of the House' measure," Dayen explained. "But it sets a marker that no bailout funds should be made available to AI companies. Casar wants the measure to be voted on early in the next Congress if Democrats take power, if not sooner, to get everyone on the record about an AI bailout."
Welcoming the resolution on social media, economist Leslie Ehrlich called it "both correct and good politics," adding, "Let the Republicans vote against it and be pro-bailouts."
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Ahead of Anthropic IPO, Warren Warns AI Giant Could Leave 'Americans Holding the Bag'
"Anthropic is saying that AI models could pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity. At the same time, Anthropic is planning the largest IPO in history."
Oct 28, 2026
As the artificial intelligence company Anthropic moves toward a historic initial public offering, the top Democrat on the US Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee sounded the alarm about both public safety and financial concerns in a Tuesday letter to CEO Dario Amodei.
"I write with concern following your company's disclosure that Anthropic's advanced AI models could 'pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity' at the same time that it seeks to register as a public company and sell shares in November," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
"Anthropic disclosed extensive public safety and financial risks to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as part of its registration process for an initial public offering (IPO)," she noted. "An IPO would provide Anthropic with broader access to the largest capital markets in the world, allowing it to raise more funding from a larger pool of investors to fuel its rapid growth."
"It will also mean that millions of Americans with retirement accounts invested in index funds will quickly become Anthropic shareholders," stressed the former Harvard University bankruptcy professor. "Public pensions are already heavily exposed to Anthropic and have expressed their concerns about Anthropic's societal risks ahead of its IPO."
According to the SEC paperwork, Anthropic plans to list on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol "ANT." Reports have suggested the company—known for its Claude models—could be valued at between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. As NPR noted: "That would put it in league with Elon Musk's rocketry and AI company SpaceX, which was valued at around $1.8 trillion when it listed in June."
Warren pointed out to Amodei that "this massive influx of public capital is likely to catapult the development and deployment of your technology during a time of intense public debate and concern about the risks of your frontier intelligence models."
The senator argued that "the risks presented by this technology demand greater scrutiny before they become intertwined with the public capital markets, which could further escalate both public safety and systemic financial risks."
The "growing public safety concerns" section of Warren's letter cites details from the Form S-1 that Anthropic submitted to the SEC, as well as the CEO's public statements "calling for the need to slow down the development of frontier AI models."
"You warned that 'we still only understand a tiny fraction of what goes on inside these models' and highlighted the 'risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption,'" she reminded Amodei. "You further warned that a 'race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute.'"
"It is also difficult to trust existing safety tests and evaluations of model test environments in the wake of recent incidents in which models built by frontier AI companies, including Anthropic, have broken through security controls and hacked external systems autonomously," the senator emphasized.
Such incidents have intensified AI experts' warnings and spurred calls for government action, leading to a range of legislative proposals, including in the US Congress—the future control of which will be decided in next week's midterm elections.
Warren highlighted that "in addition to the potentially catastrophic safety risks posed by Anthropic's technology, the company's launch into the public markets could inject extreme volatility and risk into the financial system, which threatens to undermine Americans' economic security."
"Anthropic is projected to be the largest IPO in history," she wrote. "Given its unprecedented size, swings in Anthropic's share price have the potential to roil the broader markets on day one, particularly for companies in the technology sector, and even more acutely for megacap companies with direct financial entanglement with Anthropic."
"Beyond the threats to the financial system that Anthropic's IPO may pose, the company's registration statement disclosures include astronomical projections supported by aggressive assumptions that require further review and due diligence," she added, digging into the company's disclosures.
Warren also sent Amodei a detailed list of questions she wants answered by November 3—before the company goes public.
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Sanders: Billionaires Fighting Prop 40 Would 'Rather Poor Kids With Cancer Die Than Pay a Little More in Taxes'
The senator noted that "billionaires in California are spending $333 million to wage a war" on the proposed one-time tax.
Oct 27, 2026
As one Golden State tech billionaire suggested he wouldn't move away even if voters passed the California Billionaire Tax Act that he opposes, progressive US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday took aim at the wealthy taxpayers working to defeat Proposition 40.
"Billionaires in California are spending $333 million to wage a war," Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media. "Against what? Homelessness? No. Cancer? No. Child poverty? No. They're waging war against a 5% billionaire wealth tax. They'd rather poor kids with cancer die than pay a little more in taxes. That is obscene."
Sanders, a former Democratic presidential candidate who has campaigned in California for the ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the state's billionaires to offset healthcare funding cuts, was citing contributions to Building a Better California, a group created in January.
"Eighty or so donors have provided more than $333 million to Building a Better California, state records show, making it among the best-funded political efforts in California history," The New York Times reported Tuesday. "The donor list is a who's who of tech celebrities: the Google co-founder Sergey Brin; the former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt; the Stripe chief executive Patrick Collison; the legendary investor John Doerr."
Abby Lunardini, a spokesperson for the group, told the Times that "our supporters have created companies, entirely new industries, and hundreds of thousands of jobs here in California, and they want our state to remain the place where the future is built and where people can still afford to live, dream big, and succeed."
Lunardini claimed the wealth tax would "permanently damage the state's budget, tax base, and economy," though dozens of multimillionaire Californians have signed an open letter supporting the one-time wealth tax, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—one of the richest men in the world—is preparing to potentially pay it, and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey said Monday that he won't leave the state.
TechCrunch reported on his latest comments, in which Luckey—whose defense company won key US military contracts after he was announced as one of the leaders of a new Pentagon project on the "future of warfare"—made clear that he opposes Prop 40:
"I think that this tax act, if you can call it a tax, is going to cause a lot of problems. It’s causing a lot of people to run who I don’t want to be running. It’s going to cause companies that I work with to leave the state, which is a problem for me. As of right now, though, I’m not running. I am staying. I think California is something special. I want to fight for California," Luckey said during an invite-only press conference on Monday.
He added that he's felt pressure from other billionaires to declare his intention to leave.
"This has been a point of friction between me and some of my other billionaire friends," he said. "They've said things like: 'Palmer, you have to have solidarity for us. You can't enable these really bad policies. If you stay and if you don't leave, it's going to show them that there's no consequences.' I empathize with that argument, but it's not one that I'm going to participate in right now because I still believe that we can fix things."
Luckey has publicly sparred with US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—who, like Sanders, supports Prop 40. Leading political opponents in the state include term-limited Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who's expected to run for president in 2028, and former US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Democrat running to replace the governor.
Estimates vary on how much the tax—which would apply to any billionaire residing in the state as of January 1, 2026—could cost the richest Californians, if approved by voters in next week's midterm elections.
Forbes pointed to one of them on Tuesday: "$104 billion. That's how much economists Jasper Boll, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman estimate California's billionaires would owe if Proposition 40 is enacted, according to an analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Saez and Zucman helped draft the tax proposal."
Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review editor and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, noted in a Tuesday column at The Washington Post—owned by Jeff Bezos, another one of the world's richest men—that "a new study by Benjamin Jaros and Joshua Rauh, two economists affiliated with the Hoover Institution, challenges that projection."
After trying to "account for the uncertainty over whether taxes can be collected from other billionaires, such as the ones who have left since the beginning of the year and may thus have a legal case for escaping the tax," Ponnuru summarized, those economists estimated Prop 40 would generate around $30 billion. The columnist also acknowledged that Zucman "has issued a barrage of attacks on that paper."
Specifically, Zucman called it "spectacularly misleading" and explained "its crucial flaw," which is that "they assume that billionaires will leave permanently, frightened by the prospects of an annual wealth tax."
"Let's be clear: This is a highly inappropriate way to model the effect of Prop 40 on taxpayer behavior. For one, it's a basic violation of rational expectations, a cornerstone of modern economics," Zucman said.
In Jaros and Rauh's world, "the billionaires act irrationally: They respond to a policy that does not exist and will never exist," he added. "Economics students around the world are taught this is not an appropriate way to model behavior—but apparently in this context (fighting Prop 40) it's OK."
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Trump Doesn't 'Give a Damn' About Iran War Price Hikes—His Oil and Gas Holdings Are Up to $81.6 Million
"Trump's Iran War has forced Americans to pay much more at the pump while Big Oil rakes in profits and the president's own stock wealth in the oil and gas industry continues to balloon."
Oct 26, 2026
After US President Donald Trump spent the weekend reminding midterm campaign rally attendees that he doesn't "give a damn" about soaring gasoline prices from his illegal Iran War, congressional Democrats on Monday released a report showing that his oil and gas stock holdings could now top $80 million.
During a Saturday rally in Georgia, Trump highlighted that due to his war of choice, the US fossil fuel industry is "making hundreds of billions of dollars," and predicted his comments will be turned into "fake headlines," but he added: "I don't give a damn, I'm going to say it: We're making a freaking fortune."
Just how much extra is the public paying at the pump because of the eight-month conflict? As of Monday, the national average was $4.29 a gallon for gasoline and $6.35 for diesel, according to the American Automobile Association.
An online tracker from the Climate Solutions Lab at Brown University estimates US residents have paid at least $144.6 billion more for fuel—$79.8 billion for gasoline and $64.79 billion for diesel. That's over $609 per household, just for gasoline.
Data from the congressional Joint Economic Committee suggest the impact could be even worse. As JEC Democrats' Monday report notes, the panel found that US households "have now spent an additional $101 billion on gasoline since the start of the Iran War, or an average of $856 in gas costs per family."
A state-by-state breakdown in the report—released just days ahead of the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the remainder of Trump's second term—reveals that price increases for gasoline have hit some areas particularly hard. Wyoming, a Republican stronghold, has had the highest hike per household, at $1,454.
Rounding out the top 10 are Utah ($1,240), Alabama ($1,232), Montana ($1,180), Mississippi ($1,141), South Dakota ($1,122), Idaho at ($1,108), North Dakota ($1,087), New Hampshire ($1,029), and Iowa ($1,010). Trump won all of those states but New Hampshire in 2024—when he campaigned on a promise to serve the interests of the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry if its executives dumped $1 billion into his run, while also claiming he would lower costs for working people.
Meanwhile, the report stresses, Trump's oil and gas holdings could have nearly doubled this year, growing by as much as $35.8 million, for a total of up to $81.6 million—and 94% of his 2026 industry stock purchases occurred after he went to war with Iran, which has restricted ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
The document details Trump's holdings—which are reported in ranges—in Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Marathon Petroleum, Occidental Petroleum, Phillips 66, Valero Energy, and Williams Companies. It also warns that "the true value may in fact be higher given that Trump has yet to report stock transactions for September or October, and because he has a history of filing his transactions much later than the law requires."
The graph published by the congressional Joint Economic Committee on October 26, 2026 shows US President Donald Trump's stock holdings in oil and gas companies.
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), the JEC's ranking member, declared that "Trump's Iran War has forced Americans to pay much more at the pump while Big Oil rakes in profits and the president's own stock wealth in the oil and gas industry continues to balloon."
Trump has faced scrutiny and criticism for cashing in on the conflict he created, which the White House has tried to dismiss by pointing out that the president's "stock and bond portfolio is independently managed by third-party financial institutions."
Such comments have not appeased critics, including Hassan, who said that "as Trump—the country's highest-ranking public employee—continues to own and trade stocks in companies that stand to benefit from his decisions, his actions raise major concerns about conflicts of interest. Unfortunately, this is nothing new from this administration and only reinforces that the president puts his own financial interests above the American people."
This article has been updated to credit the Climate Solutions Lab at Brown University for its fuel cost tracker.
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