“Healthcare shouldn’t bankrupt you, housing should not feel impossible, polluters shouldn’t pass their bill to us and artists should not be replaced by AI,” Smith said. “That’s why I’m supporting Tom Steyer for governor.”

But Smith started the video with a disclaimer: “This is an ad, and honestly, I wish more political content said that first.” His caption specified that he was paid by Steyer’s campaign.

California is one of two states, along with Texas, that have passed policies requiring content creators to say if they’ve been paid by a political campaign to post, and the Golden State is considering cracking down by fining people who don’t.

Campaigns have long worked with celebrities and major influencers to win over voters, but now they are teaming up with smaller creators — sometimes with fewer than 100,000 followers — to reach more tailored audiences. That has sparked debates about whether disclosure rules for political advertisements should apply to content creators, who are expected to play prominent roles in the upcoming midterms and the 2028 presidential election.

“If you’re running for president and you are not currently trying to court some of these people or lining up your own people to act as surrogates for you, you’re already behind,” said Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist who worked for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

Campaigns tap creators to spread their message

Questions about transparency have been fueled by high-profile instances of influencers making content intended to change minds or votes without disclosing they were paid for it.

In 2022, the campaign of then-Senate candidate John Fetterman paid Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi of “Jersey Shore” to record a video teasing his GOP rival for leaving New Jersey before announcing his run in Pennsylvania. In 2023, content creators were paid by an influencer marketing agency with conservative ties to defend Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, after he was impeached for alleged bribery and other accusations of misconduct, according to the Texas Tribune. The payments weren’t clearly disclosed in either case.

Steyer, a Democratic billionaire who spent more than $215 million of his own money in his unsuccessful bid for governor, took fire from rivals for paying content creators. He wasn’t the only hopeful in the race paying influencers, but he faced much of the blowback since he’d already been accused of trying to buy the election. Many of the creators who worked with Steyer’s campaign disclosed that they were paid, but the state’s campaign finance watchdog is investigating several other instances in which creators allegedly didn’t.

There are no federal disclosure rules

California Sen. Adam Schiff introduced federal legislation last month, but it hasn’t received a vote yet. Some outside groups are urging the Federal Election Commission to pass its own rule.

California’s law requiring disclosure, passed in 2023, is difficult to enforce. The state’s campaign watchdog can seek a court order compelling an influencer to disclose that they were paid, but that can take months.

That prompted Democratic Assemblymember Marc Berman to write a new bill to penalize content creators and political committees if the creator fails to state they were compensated. The bill would give the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission the power to fine influencers and committees if they are found to have violated the law, allowing the commission to bypass the court process. They could face fines of up to $5,000 per violation, according to the commission.

“Voters should have a right to know whether or not campaigns are paying for the messaging that they’re seeing,” Berman said.

Texas’ campaign watchdog passed a rule in 2024 requiring content creators to include disclaimers when they are paid for political advertisements, and the New York Legislature is considering a similar requirement. Other disclosure bills failed in recent years in Utah and Georgia.

Influencer says his ad had an impact

Smith, the L.A. influencer, hadn’t committed to a candidate for governor when a trusted friend told him to look into Steyer. That friend had been paid to post about Steyer.

Smith liked Steyer’s promise to increase taxes on billionaires and his refusal to accept donations from corporate political action committees.

He ended up doing two paid ads, both of which included compensation disclaimers that the Steyer campaign told him were a requirement.

Smith wouldn’t say exactly how much the campaign paid him, but he said it was in the thousands of dollars. He thinks the posts had an impact on his followers, with only a few detractors pushing back.

“They kind of trust my voice,” he said of his audience. “They knew that if I’m saying it, it’s at least something they should look into.”

Creators respond to proposed policy changes

Dustin Torreverde, a content creator in Southern California who hasn’t been paid by a political campaign for social media posts, said it’s important for influencers to be transparent with their audiences. But the bill could pose an unfair burden on creators who are just trying to make a living, he said.

“A lot of us are very small creators,” he said. “So if we were to get penalized and we have to get lawyers, stuff like that, it’s going to be very difficult for us.”

Adina Flores, a libertarian content creator in Northern California who votes for both parties, said influencers should have to disclose if they are paid and she generally supports penalties. She worries that some people may take money to post political content without doing a “deep dive into the candidate to make sure that’s somebody they should support.”

Saurav Ghosh, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit focused on protecting U.S. democracy, hopes disclosure requirements passed by states will lead to federal rules.

“Transparency is one of the most important pillars of our election system,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

While they wrapped up many key priorities in the overnight votes, advancing Trump’s SAVE America Act was not among them.

Instead, Republican senators who had brought the chamber to a standstill spoke to Trump late in the evening about an alternative plan: They would try again to approve elements of the voting bill as part of a broader GOP budget package to fund the Iran war and replenish the Pentagon when they return to work in September.

“Obviously, with the president at his direction, this is what he wants to do,” said Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the GOP budget committee chairman, flanked by Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rick Scott, R-Fla., after their phone call with the president.

The sudden wind-down after weeks of Trump ramping up his demands shows just how deeply the president is able to reach into the halls of Congress to set the agenda or disrupt it, the executive directing the affairs of the legislative branch. While Trump is often seen as a de facto speaker of the House, he is invariably trying his hand at mastering the Senate.

Trump had poked and prodded Senate Majority Leader John Thune for weeks to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that does not have enough support from the Republicans who hold majority power, let alone the Democrats whose votes would be needed to advance it in the Senate.

The president has gone so far as to insist the Senate abandon its filibuster rules to jam the SAVE America Act past the 60-vote threshold that is typically needed to advance legislation in the chamber — something Thune and most senators have no interest in doing.

“John’s trying. He’s trying hard. I really believe that. But if he doesn’t get there, it would be unfortunate,” Trump said in an interview with Punchbowl News that posted Friday.

Trump’s pressure couldn’t overcome Thune’s reality

Thune himself has worked to carefully balance the often unusual demands of the president with the political reality of his slim GOP majority. Republicans are down one vote with the prolonged absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former leader, who said this week he was released from a rehabilitation center and is recovering at home.

“I think everybody’s, for the most part, on the same page,” Thune, R-S.D., said about the trio’s call with Trump, adding that eventually the Senate would have to tackle another budget bill.

During a daylong session that dragged for nearly 20 hours, Thune successfully powered through a lengthy list of other Trump priorities. Senators confirmed the president’s pick of Todd Blanche as the attorney general, passed a sweeping Russian sanctions package to aid Ukraine, and approved a bipartisan package to fund the government into December in an early step toward avoiding a government shutdown.

The Republicans also tried to push forward a slimmer voting bill that would require people to show IDs before casting ballots for federal elections. It failed to advance, largely on a party-line vote with Democrats opposed.

But the failure to make progress on the SAVE America Act had erupted as an online crusade for Trump’s allies in Congress, amplified by activists urging them on.

Led by Lee, a growing group of senators was refusing to adjourn for the summer break without passing Trump’s priority voting bill.

At dinnertime, Thune gathered all the Republican senators for a meeting as the standoff deepened at the Capitol. There was no immediate way forward for the SAVE America Act or the broader budget bill. Thune encouraged the trio of senators to talk to the president, which they did, before regrouping back at Thune’s office.

“We had about a two-hour conference meeting trying to figure out, you know, what we need to do to, to come to an agreement, to accomplish what the president wanted,” Johnson said. “Then we had discussion with the president, he agrees.”

Lee acknowledged he was disappointed by the outcome, but said he understood the political reality of the situation.

“We are not in a position right now where we have the wherewithal to pass it,” Lee told reporters at the Capitol, after the three senators emerged from Thune’s office following their call with Trump.

Near daybreak, when the Senate did call for the vote to adjourn, Lee and others objected with hearty nos.

On the simple voice vote, the ayes had it, and the motion to adjourn was adopted.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The Republican-led Senate voted 50-49 to make Blanche the second confirmed attorney general since Trump returned to the White House last year with a stated desire to use the law enforcement agency to investigate his political enemies. While Blanche has already been leading the department in an acting capacity, his confirmation could free him to pursue the Trump administration’s agenda even more aggressively.

Blanche said on social media that he was “deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me,” adding that he was “grateful” to senators for working late to confirm him.

The vote followed a tumultuous confirmation fight that exposed deep concerns — from some Republicans as well as Democrats — about installing Trump’s close ally atop a Justice Department that historically prided itself on its independence from the White House.

In the end, Blanche was confirmed by the narrowest of margins, opposed by two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — and by every Democrat.

The path to confirmation for Blanche was unusually rocky, due in large part to Republican concerns about a controversial settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.

Under pressure, Blanche publicly promised in writing that the department would abandon Trump’s proposed $1.8 billion compensation fund for the president’s allies, including those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and rein in another piece of the settlement designed to shield Trump and his family from IRS tax audits.

His appeals were enough to win over Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, the decisive vote who threw his support behind Blanche Friday morning. Cassidy said no other nominee may be able to run the department better under Trump and suggested Blanche’s role as Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer can make him more effective at pushing back on the president’s demands.

“This is not a referendum on President Trump. It is a decision regarding Mr. Blanche in very specific circumstances,” said Cassidy, who lost his primary this year to a Trump-backed challenger.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said confirming Blanche would be a “serious mistake.” He begged his colleagues not to be on the “wrong side” of history.

“If there is ever a moment in history when we need an Attorney General above reproach, who is clearly dedicated to ending corruption, even at the highest level of our government, it’s right now,” Durbin said.

Blanche’s loyalty to Trump left senators skeptical

The vote capped off a bruising confirmation fight, with Blanche’s loyalty to Trump at the center of the stalemate.

Blanche was elevated to the top Justice Department post in an acting capacity after Trump fired Pam Bondi in April. Blanche moved swiftly to advance the president’s interests, accelerating investigations into Trump’s perceived foes and announcing the settlement that created the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate people who feel mistreated by the criminal justice system and provided Trump and family members with immunity from tax audits.

The controversial settlement threatened to torpedo Blanche’s nomination until he formally rescinded the fund in writing under pressure from Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. The deal reached between the senators and the department unlocked a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which advanced Blanche’s nomination earlier this week

Even after the deal, Blanche faced opposition from some Republican senators concerned with the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and the tax audit immunity deal.

Murkowski announced early Friday that she would join Collins in opposing Blanche’s nomination, saying the country needs an attorney general “who will check the worst impulses of this administration.”

Former prosecutor rises as Trump’s defender

A former federal prosecutor in New York, Blanche rose to public prominence as a lead attorney on Trump’s defense team, including during the Republican’s hush money trial in New York. He also defended Trump against criminal charges in the two federal cases brought by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice — an experience Blanche has said provided him a firsthand look at what he contends was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.

Blanche entered the Justice Department last year as deputy attorney general under Bondi, overseeing the agency’s day-to-day operations and serving as the public face for high-profile and controversial matters, like the release of millions of investigative files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Democrats have accused Blanche of prioritizing his loyalty to Trump above all else through investigations against Trump foes such as former FBI Director James Comey and a radical reshaping of the department. Under Bondi and Blanche’s leadership, the department has lost thousands of employees through firings, resignations or voluntary departures.

Blanche’s supporters say his experience as a federal prosecutor and the trust he earned from Trump in the courtroom make him better equipped than Bondi to explain to the White House the legal constraints of its demands. Republicans have also touted his efforts to bring down violent crime, tackle illegal immigration and combat violent cartels and drug trafficking.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, gave a full-throated endorsement of Blanche ahead of voting, saying he’s led the Justice Department with distinction. “Mr. Blanche is the right choice,” he said.

But it remains unclear whether Blanche will fare any better in delivering on Trump’s desire for retribution than Bondi, whom Trump fired amid resistance from judges, grand jurors and the department’s own workforce as prosecutors sought to establish criminal conduct by one Trump foe after another.

Shortly after Blanche took the top post, the Justice Department moved to indict Comey on charges of threatening the 47th president by posting a social media photograph of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47.” Comey’s lawyers are pressing to have the case dismissed, accusing the department of misleading judges, submitting documents containing false statements and withholding key facts.

Blanche has also appointed Joseph diGenova, a former Justice Department prosecutor from the Reagan administration, to oversee a Florida-based investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump. But it remains uncertain whether that probe will result in any criminal charges.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The conglomerate that legendary investor Warren Buffett built reported its second-quarter earnings Saturday morning and disclosed that its cash holdings had shrunk to $365.5 billion from nearly $400 billion at the end of March.

Berkshire’s report suggested that it had added more than $24 billion worth of commercial, industrial and other stocks to its portfolio, but the earnings report doesn’t name the stocks it bought. That won’t be revealed until a separate filing later this month.

Abel took over as CEO in January when Buffett retired after six decades leading the company. But Buffett remains chairman.

Abel announced in March that Berkshire had resumed buying back its own shares for the first time in more than two years, but investors were underwhelmed when the company only repurchased about $234 million worth of Berkshire stock in the first quarter.

The purchases in the second quarter that were disclosed Saturday demonstrate that Berkshire is serious about buybacks, but it is on the low end of the range that investors were expecting. Buffett watchers had been predicting repurchases somewhere between $5 billion and $11 billion based on a filing Buffett made when he announced his annual charitably donations in July.

The company’s standard is that it only repurchases shares when Abel and Buffett believes they are selling for less than they are worth. They do not plan to spend a specific amount like many companies do. Most of Berkshire’s repurchases were made in June. They may not be buying much now as the stock just hit a new 52-week high on Thursday.

Berkshire previously repurchased $78 billion worth of its own stock between 2018 and 2024.

In addition to the Google stock Berkshire bought this spring, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company also completed a $6.8 billion acquisition of homebuilder Taylor Morrison but that didn’t close until July so it’s not reflected in these quarterly figures.

Berkshire’s bottom line profit more than doubled to $25.667 billion, or $17,868.44 per Class A share, on a big paper gain in the value of its investments as the company lapped last year’s $3.8 billion writedown in the value of its Kraft Foods stake. A year ago Berkshire reported earning $12.37 billion, or $8,600.89 per Class A share,

But Buffett has long urged investors to pay more attention to Berkshire’s operating earnings to get a better sense of how its dozens of companies are performing because those numbers exclude investments. By that measure, Berkshire’s operating profit grew to $12.983 billion, or $9,038.30 per A share, from $11.16 billion, or $7,759.58 per Class A share.

Berkshire owns several major insurers, including Geico, a collection of big utilities, BNSF railroad and a varied assortment of manufacturing and retail companies, including Precision Castparts and See’s Candy.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The massive Microsoft deal, dubbed Project Kilby, positions Chevron as the booming AI leader of Big Oil. Chevron considers Kilby—slated to come online in 2028 and ramp up through 2031—as the first of potentially several massive AI hyperscaler deals that will span West Texas and other gas-laden regions, including the Rockies and the Midwest, Jeff Gustavson, Chevron New Energies president, told Fortune. The project, fittingly, is an homage to Texas Instruments’ Jack Kilby, the inventor of the integrated circuit, or microchip, and the handheld calculator—early precursors of AI.

“After making the announcement about Kilby [in June], everyone wants to talk to us,” Gustavson said. “They now see us as a higher credibility player in this space that can actually put together everything you need on these projects, including, importantly, a customer.”

When he says “everyone,” he means not just the hyperscalers, but also the gas turbine manufacturers—critically important amid long queues for equipment—and all the other necessary third-party suppliers and contractors. Chevron brings the scale, project management, land, natural gas resources, and more.

The 20-year power deal with Microsoft is for 2.67 gigawatts of natural gas-fired power—and room to grow with solar and batteries as well. The deal includes Chevron’s land and gas, additional land and water services from Texas Pacific Land, support from Engine No. 1-backed power startup Joulent, at least seven large GE Vernova turbines, and several smaller Caterpillar Solar Titan 350 turbines. It doesn’t hurt that Chevron has a market cap of about $370 billion and just posted its most profitable quarter ever.

“We think we can do more of these. This is a platform for growth, which we think differentiates us versus our peer set,” Gustavson said. “We can be selective here because we bring a set of capabilities that really are unique. There are not many companies that can do all the things a Chevron can, and we have just proven that we can actually make this real.”

Big Oil evolution

While Chevron has worked with Microsoft on cloud computing services for a decade, when the nascent AI boom began, Chevron was in on the discussions but left out in the dark on the actual deals.

“They were very focused on renewable power only. That was all they were really talking about,” Gustavson said. “For us, renewable power is not a core strength.”

That began to shift about two years ago as speed and reliability jumped to the forefront of the global AI race. Power demand kept spiking, and the hyperscalers realized the U.S. grid wouldn’t handle the loads they required. “You started to have some of the concerns around consumer electricity prices and all of that,” Gustavson said. “And, really, the discussion shifted to, ‘Hey, we need reliable, affordable energy. Can we talk about natural gas?’”

After ExxonMobil, Chevron is the second-largest oil and gas producer in West Texas’ Permian Basin—the epicenter of U.S. energy extraction. But there’s very little power demand in the rural region. So why not build the data center complexes close to the natural gas production where there’s plenty of land readily available too?

“West Texas we always thought was the place you would want to do this first because you have a very large natural gas resource,” Gustavson said. “It’s a state where it’s a little easier to get things done. You have a deregulated power market. We know the stakeholders. You put all that together and the conversations really took off. We reserved equipment very early—a year and a half ago—and put together the project.”

Microsoft eventually agreed, having relaxed but not abandoned its climate goals to achieve AI expediency.

“The rapid growth we’re experiencing in AI and cloud, driven by customer demand, requires energy infrastructure that can scale quickly and reliably,” said Noelle Walsh, Microsoft president of the Cloud Operations + Innovation group, in a statement. “Our agreement with Chevron helps ensure we’ll have dedicated, large-scale power to support the evolution and reliability of advanced compute.”

Even with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott putting a temporary freeze on new data center grid interconnections, Chevron and Microsoft can proceed because they’re building behind the meter with ample power resources. “Texas and the administration in Austin have been very clear, ‘If you want to build data centers in this state, we need you to bring your own power. This cannot impact our consumers,’” Gustavson said.

For Chevron and Microsoft, that’s no problem. When the grid catches up, Gustavson said, Project Kilby can join the Texas grid, but there’s no urgency to do so anytime soon.

State of the AI industry

There are plenty of massive AI campuses in Texas on the drawing board. Open AI’s pioneering Stargate campus is moving slower than planned. Other larger-than-life proposals—Fermi’s Project Matador, Pacifico Energy’s GW Ranch, and Energy Abundance’s Data City, Texas campus—all lack customers for now.

Chevron counts a 20-year deal with a hyperscaler and room to grow. Only ExxonMobil can compete with Chevron for potential scale, but Exxon has focused more on developing carbon capture solutions for data center campuses instead of taking the lead on projects. For its part, Chevron is planning carbon capture growth as well.

Trek a not-so-brief, 560-mile away from dry Reeves County to Chevron’s humid Houston headquarters—yes, Texas is a large state—and Chevron chairman and CEO Mike Wirth touts how the company has turned the Permian into its free cash flow bell cow, keeping costs down and raking in the rewards.

But Wirth is willing to turn the tap back on for greater natural gas production if it means more Project Kilby equivalents. “Could the Permian grow? One hundred percent,” Wirth said during his July 31 earnings call. “The Permian is one of many options we have into the next decade for growth.”

Chevron’s other huge gas resource in the U.S. is the Rockies region—from Colorado to North Dakota—where there also is ample land. And Gustavson said the company is eyeing South Texas’ Eagle Ford Shale region closer to the U.S. Gulf Coast, and the western Midwest, Gustavson said, including Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. All of these regions could accommodate more hyperscaler projects, he said. While West Texas remains option No. 1, he said, “We’ll be customer-led on that.”

And Chevron is cognizant of the negative environmental implications of the AI boom and the surge of new gas-fired power plants. While the natural gas industry is always quick to point out it’s cleaner than coal, Gustavson emphasized the potential for carbon capture at every gas plant, as well as adding more renewable energy and, eventually, clean geothermal power.

“This is the big question. The world is faced with this challenge. We’re always trying to balance reliability and affordability with ever-cleaner energy,” Gustavson said, arguing that AI advancements should contribute to fighting climate change over time. “For Microsoft, this is still very important to them, and it’s very important to us. We’ll continue to work together with them to see how we can best balance that equation.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Recent studies have shown AI having a positive impact on job growth and opportunities, yet large groups of economists, as well as labor activists, warn that the emerging technology threatens to quickly transform the financial system, and that action must be taken now.

Tech companies, especially large ones, have continued to cull jobs during the AI boom. Microsoft laid off nearly 5,000 people in early July as it continues to pour billions into AI data centers. The layoffs added to earlier downsizing by the software giant and moves by companies that include Amazon and Oracle to shed thousands of people in the last two years.

But whether AI is directly leading to job cuts has been difficult to measure, and the picture is blurred by corporate whiplash: CEOs blame AI for layoffs one month, then hail it as an engine for new job creation the next. Even recently, some of the largest companies, such as Google parent Alphabet, have reportedly told investors they plan to increase headcount.

“There’s been discretion out there as to what extent the layoffs we have been observing are really driven by AI,” Till Von Wachter, a professor of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Fortune. “It’s been notoriously hard to pin that down.”

Some economists, such as Ben Zipperer from the Economic Policy Institute, said AI’s impact on jobs has so far been more limited than what some doomsday scenarios initially predicted. 

The latest U.S. jobs report, which revealed that employers unexpectedly cut 23,000 jobs in July, as only added to the confusion.

And some recent data has shown a bullish picture. A recent study by financial services firm Ramp of more than 21,000 U.S. firms found that companies that invested in AI grew their headcount. Ramp categorized its heaviest AI spenders as “high-intensity” adopters. Over two years, these top spenders expanded their overall staff by 10% and boosted entry-level hiring by 12%, defying other reports that college graduates face a barren job market. By contrast, the bottom two-thirds of adopters saw no headcount growth at all.

Though the study found general AI adopters tended to be larger firms, the most intense adopters were smaller companies which might already be growing regardless of AI and are more open to experimentation. High-intensity companies were utilizing more advanced tools like coding agents or APIs (protocols that allow various applications to communicate).

The Ramp study has parallels to a recent report by researchers at Google that found AI so far is mostly being used as a collaborative tool rather than an outright job-replacer.

Meanwhile, a June California Policy Lab study found no statewide spike in unemployment insurance claims among AI-exposed roles like software developers and customer service reps since ChatGPT’s release in late 2022, but it did find elevated UI claims specifically for college-educated workers in highly-exposed roles, as well as a significant increase in claims from high-exposed roles in the San Francisco area.

The Big Tech companies “definitely overhired during the pandemic and are now making the decisions to correct that overhiring,” Ara Kharazian, lead economist at Ramp, told Fortune. Some are “blaming it on AI. But what we’re seeing from firms that are using AI that didn’t have that overhiring problem is that they’re continuing to grow.”

He added that although many firms in his study were fast-growing to begin with, they grew even faster following AI adoption.

AI washing or AI cloaking?

Untangling AI’s true impact could take years, stymied by a phenomenon researchers call “AI washing,” where companies attribute layoffs to AI to seem forward-thinking, or the opposite trend, where companies avoid mentioning AI for fear of public outcry. Much existing research has had to rely on estimating which tasks could potentially be accomplished by AI, or indirect surveys rather than actual spending or usage records.

Some companies may also be hiring at the same time others are displacing workers, according to UCLA’s Wachter.

Yet despite some positive results, both economists and on-the-ground workers are calling attention to the negative impact AI is already having on the labor market. In July, nearly 200 economists and researchers published a statement warning that AI could cause large-scale job displacement in the next decade.

“This could drive an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame,” the statement says. Its signatories include Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark and Eric Schmidt, Google’s former chief executive. The statement calls on policymakers to “act now” to better understand how AI is transforming the economy and to create legislation that will “steer A.I. in a direction that complements humans and benefits society.”

A 2025 report co-authored by Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson, one of the organizers of the recent statement from economists and researchers, analyzed ADP workforce data and found that workers aged 22–25 in AI-exposed roles such as software engineering suffered a 16% relative employment drop compared to less-exposed peers.

Responding to the Ramp study, Brynjolfsson in June wrote on X that firms that adopt AI “may grow by gaining market share from non-adopters, so employment can rise among adopters even as exposed occupations shrink economy-wide.”

Kharazian, the Ramp economist, said when looking outside the high-intensity, high-growth part of Ramp’s study, the company didn’t find job gains, but it also didn’t find broad job loss.

Rank-and-file employees remain worried about the impact of AI, a spokesperson for Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, an advocacy group of current and former Amazon employees, told Fortune. Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy said about a year ago that AI would lead to a leaner workforce, but in February said that AI could ultimately fuel job creation, and he has framed Amazon’s layoffs as an attempt to flatten its organizational structure. The company cut about 30,000 jobs between the end of 2025 and the start of this year.

Far from making work easier, employees are feeling a “huge increased pressure” from Amazon executives to finish tasks faster using AI, the ACJ spokesperson said. AI tools have also made the demand for output higher. 

An Amazon spokesperson said the company expects employees “to use all available resources—including AI tools—to help them be even more effective and have an even bigger positive impact on our customers’ lives” but said AI has not been the reason behind the majority of its layoffs, that AI adoption isn’t a factor in deciding layoffs, and that while some roles may be reduced, entirely new categories of jobs will emerge.

Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle have all laid off thousands of workers as they spend billions on AI infrastructure. In a June filing, Oracle said its layoffs of thousands during the past year were tied to AI.

Changing their tunes

In addition to Amazon’s Jassy altering his messaging on AI killing jobs, other high-profile CEOs have softened previous comments. OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman had long predicted that AI would lead to huge changes in the workforce, but in May said the company had been wrong about how much “people would continue to be at the center of everything.”

Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei in June wrote that his earlier comments about AI eliminating jobs were not meant to be a “prophet of doom,” but rather a call for policymakers to plan and adapt. Mustafa Suleyman, the head of Microsoft’s AI lab, earlier this year predicted that most tasks that involve “sitting down at a computer” would be fully automated by AI within the next year or 18 months, though he later tempered his stance.

Industries may handle their workforces differently based on a variety of factors. Some companies have taken aim at middle managers as the companies seek to be more nimble.

Dave Clark, founder of AI logistics startup Auger and a former senior Amazon executive, said with the help of AI, his team of roughly 80 engineers now performs with the velocity of 800 engineers.

While some data highlights risks for early-career workers, Clark said he’s observed senior staff who can dive deep on specific tasks and curious new graduates who “sand off the edges” of AI output showing the clearest value during the AI age. But mid-level engineers may have the toughest time because they may be less inclined to experiment with new AI-driven workflows, he said.

“The future state is less about your ability to be a precise expert on transportation or warehousing or something else, and more about your ability to understand how systems connect and work together,” Clark said. “That makes me hopeful about it because I think that’s much more enjoyable human work.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

That’s why his hedge fund Pershing Square, which manages roughly $35 billion in assets, offers its four dozen employees generous workplace benefits, including broad ownership and an even rare degree of flexibility for Wall Street. 

“There’s not a person at Pershing Square that doesn’t own multiple millions of dollars of stock in the company—whether you’re cleaning the space or at the front desk or another role in the company,” Ackman told Fortune’s Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell on a recent episode of Fortune’s Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast. “We believe in taking care of our people.”

Ackman’s approach to retention goes beyond financial incentives. While Perishing employees are required to work from the office five days a week—that policy only applies for 10 months of the year. During July and August, employees can spread out as they like, with the company’s investment team moving to the Hamptons together, either in homes they rent or own, to work.

“We look after people, and so that when you operate that way, people don’t think about going anyplace else,” Ackman said. 

Pershing also invests heavily in employees’ health and well-being, Ackman said, offering everything from healthy meals in its cafe to gym access and comprehensive healthcare benefits. With a staff of just 48 people, Pershing has not had one “undesired departure” from the firm.

“I think everyone here feels accurately that they’re a big contributor to our success, and the result is we can accomplish an enormous amount,” Ackman added.

How Ackman built Pershing into a multibillion-dollar firm with ‘people you want to hang out with’

Ackman grew up in New York before graduating from Harvard with his bachelor’s in 1988 and later, his MBA in 1992. That year, he founded Gotham Partners with fellow Harvard graduate David P. Berkowitz, but the investment firm later failed in part after its bets on private companies backfired.

In 2004, he launched Pershing Square Capital Management, the activist hedge fund that has grown into one of Wall Street’s best-known investment firms. Since its founding, Pershing has built major stakes in companies including Chipotle, Universal Music Group, and J.C. Penney. The firm went public on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in 2014.

But on top of the workplace culture itself, Ackman credits much of Pershing’s recent success to the way he’s built out his team.

“[I’m a] big believer in only hiring people of the highest character, human qualities—people you want to hang out with, spend time with,” he said, adding that because employees spend so much of their lives at work, he’s prioritized hiring colleagues people genuinely enjoy being around.

“There are a lot of super talented people, but when you combine a super talented person with great human qualities, that’s a great base to build a great culture.”

AI is putting world-class intelligence within everyone’s reach, Ackman says

Throughout his career, Ackman has built a reputation for taking unconventional positions and backing them with conviction—whether making bold investment bets or weighing in on contentious public debates. But looking ahead, the 60-year-old believes artificial intelligence will be the next major competitive advantage, not just for companies but for workers willing to embrace it.

Earlier this year, after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos argued that AI-driven productivity gains could eventually create a labor shortage—and that lower-income Americans should pay no income tax—Ackman said he agreed, calling Bezos’ argument a “powerful case” for the technology’s long-term economic impact.

Ackman expects AI to reshape industries including education and healthcare, arguing that advanced models can already help people better understand complex medical issues while making expert knowledge far more accessible.

“This is the era in which you can learn anything, and you don’t actually have to read books now,” Ackman said. “You can just ask your AI to teach you whatever it is that you need to learn.”

For Ackman, that’s one of AI’s biggest promises: making world-class expertise available to anyone with an internet connection.

“We’re in a world in which intelligence—very high level of intelligence—is available basically for free,” he told Fortune. “It’s a pretty amazing world.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

But there’s another critical group keeping planes moving on time—and they’re facing a dire shortage: aviation maintenance technicians.

Some 83% of technicians are expected to retire or leave the profession globally over the next decade, according to the 2025 CAE Aviation Talent Forecast. By 2034, that translates to a need of about 416,000 new aircraft maintenance technicians worldwide.

Jason Pfaff, CEO of the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, told Fortune the occupation has largely suffered from a lack of awareness and has become largely “hidden.”

“There’s a very acute shortage in our country today of aviation mechanics,” Pfaff told Fortune. “We have on average about half the number of trained certified mechanics that we need.”

To meet the demand, many aviation technician programs, including AIM, offer 21-month training programs—all at a fraction of the cost of a four-year degree. If students then pass the FAA Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) exams, they become “one of the most in-demand people in aerospace,” Pfaff added. Depending on the campus, AIM employment placement rates average around 73%.

While the work isn’t all glamorous—technicians often endure extreme weather, noisy tarmacs, and the smell of jet fumes—the payoff can be substantial. In the U.S., the median salary for these roles is around $79,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But climbing the ranks—and taking advantage of overtime—can quickly push pay well into the six figures. And in some cases, total compensation can reach $300,000 or more, said Bianca Miller, an avionics technician at Newark Liberty International Airport.

“The opportunities are endless,” Miller previously told Fortune. “At the end of the day, there really is no wrong.”

A broader lack of attention to the trades

The demand for aviation maintenance technicians is playing out in real time. Take Pittsburgh International Airport, for example. Thanks to an expansion from American Airlines, the number of aviation maintenance positions was expected to double from about 360 at the end of 2024 to about 600 in 2025, according to Christina Cassotis, the airport’s CEO. 

And while she said they haven’t had trouble finding or retaining aircraft maintenance talent, the airport hasn’t been immune from the broader shortage of skilled trade workers. When Pittsburgh began construction on its new terminal in 2021, for instance, there weren’t enough workers in the region to support the project.

“I think that in the past few years, we have over-indexed on college as the right career path for most, and careers in the trades haven’t been given the attention they deserve as a viable option,” Cassotis said.

It’s a sentiment echoed far beyond aviation.

Ford CEO Jim Farley, for example, has sounded the alarm on the shortage of talent to fill manual-labor jobs in the U.S.

“We are in trouble in our country. We are not talking about this enough,” Farley told the Office Hours: Business Edition podcast in 2025. “We have over a million openings in critical jobs, emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians, and tradesmen. It’s a very serious thing.”

A lack of skilled trade workers also threatens the tech industry’s rapid buildout of AI data centers.

“If you’re an electrician, you’re a plumber, a carpenter—we’re going to need hundreds of thousands of them to build all of these factories,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Channel 4 News in the U.K. in 2025.

“The skilled craft segment of every economy is going to see a boom. You’re going to have to be doubling and doubling and doubling every single year.”

Gen Z, for its part, appears to be listening. Enrollment at two-year public trade-focused institutions is up nearly 20% between 2020 and 2025, according to National Student Clearinghouse. And in aviation maintenance specifically, AIM has seen Gen Z applications soar by about 40% in recent years.

A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on November 14, 2025.

More on the future of work

• In South Korea, teenagers are skipping college for semiconductor school—they’re landing six-figure Samsung jobs at 17 and bonuses of up to $400,000
• JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says 300,000 workers are needed to rebuild American shipbuilding—with jobs paying $100,000 without a college degree
• This former U.S. soccer player built a $20 billion-a-year company. Now, he says resilience matters more than talent—and points to Lionel Messi as proof
  
  
  

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

In 2025, Las Vegas saw just under 1.2 million Canadian tourists compared to 2024’s 1.4 million, a 17.4% drop, according to data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). The trend of declining visitors from up north has been reflected across the U.S.: Canadian government data indicates a 25% drop in year-over-year visits from Canadians to the U.S. in 2025.

New data unveils an even sharper drop-off in Canadian travelers to the U.S., and it’s not just tourists snubbing American cities—it’s business leaders as well. 

A cell phone activity data analysis from the University of Toronto School of Cities published earlier this year found a 42% year-over-year median decline in Canadian visits to U.S. metropolitan areas. 

These major declines in Canadian visitors weren’t just found in cities known for tourism, such as Orlando and Las Vegas—which would signify a downturn in tourism—but also in major industrial and financial hubs such as Dallas and Grand Rapids, Mich. 

While these areas are still known for some tourism, they also have significant connections to Canadian business: Scotiabank opened a regional headquarters in Dallas in early 2026, joining Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Montreal, and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce as Canadian financial institutions with a presence there. Grand Rapids is closely linked with Canada’s automotive industry and named Vaughan, Ontario, as a sister city earlier this month.

Dallas saw a nearly 50% year-over-year drop in Canadian visitors, and Grand Rapids saw a 53% drop. 

“The story these numbers tell us is that it’s not just tourist travel—a lot of it is tourist travel—but there’s other travel that’s hurt as well,” Karen Chapple, analysis coauthor and director of the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, told Fortune. 

Why are Canadians shifting away from U.S. business trips?

Chapple believes much of the dip in travel is an extension of Canadians boycotting American goods. It has been more than a full year since President Donald Trump imposed a raft of global tariffs, including a 25% tax on most Canadian imports. The levies—and, most recently, threats to impose additional taxes in retaliation for smoke drifting into the U.S. following a bout of wildfires—as well as Trump’s assertions that Canada should be a 51st state, have correlated with Canadians souring on their southern neighbors. A Politico poll of 2,000 Canadian adults conducted in February found 58% believed the U.S. was not a reliable ally. Nearly 80% said Trump has made the relationship between Canada and the U.S. weaker.

“It’s probably driven by a feeling that, if we’re going to boycott in our personal lives, let’s do it in our work lives too,” Chapple said.

Those bitter feelings have translated to Canadians pulling back from the U.S. economy in a meaningful way. The Center for Economic and Policy Research found by mid-2025, U.S. establishments with the highest share of Canadians among its visitors saw about 6% fewer employees compared to establishments in less exposed markets, translating to a loss of between 14,000 and 42,000 jobs in those exposed markets. Canadian government data released late last month found Canadians spent $18.8 billion on travel to the U.S. in 2025, $3.3 billion fewer than the year before.

Chapple sees the loss of business travelers as even costlier than tourists. Business travel represents about 20% of total travel to the U.S., but accounts to about 60% of air and lodging revenue, according to the U.S. Travel Association. This is a result of business travel requiring greater hotel and conference center spending, as well as more dining out, compared to travel for leisure, when travelers may be visiting family or friends.

To be sure, Canadians are still continuing to pour money into U.S. assets, limiting the impact of a true boycott. From January to May 2025, Canadian investors poured $59.9 billion Canadian dollars ($43.3 billion USD) into net purchases of U.S. equities and debt, National Bank of Canada Financial Markets data showed, the largest sum in a year-to-date period since at least 1990. 

Still, Chapple warned, fewer Canadian visitors in the long run could be a harbinger of more economic pullback from one of the U.S.’s key historical allies.

“It is indicative of a beginning of a shift that could continue,” she said. “Hard to say.”

A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on May 12, 2026.

More on Canada’s relationship with the U.S.:

• Self-made multimillionaire says Canadians ‘give no money away’ compared with Americans—research shows U.S. giving is more than twice as high
• Trump just invoked a 1930 tariff law no president has ever used — against Canada
• Canada celebrates new Detroit River bridge connecting Ontario to Michigan as 50% tariff feud keeps American officials away

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

But that story is being rewritten now. Homebuyers are now prioritizing affordability and steady employment, meaning Rust Belt cities are now stronger than their Sunbelt counterparts. Ohio, in particular, is a quiet champion of the American housing market, thanks to the allure of the Cleveland Clinic, and a $20 billion Intel plant. Oh, and homes that are about 30% cheaper than those on the coasts.

Redfin data released in July shows the U.S. is firmly a buyer’s market, with sellers outnumbering buyers by nearly two to one.

“The biggest hurdle for Americans looking to buy a home is affordability, but those with the budget to move now–even in the face of record-high home prices and stubbornly high mortgage rates–have the power,” Asad Khan, a senior economist at Redfin, wrote in the report. “In most of the country, there are more homes to choose from, fewer bidding wars and more room to negotiate on price, closing costs and repairs.” 

In a lopsided market, Ohio holds steady

The five most lopsided buyer’s markets in the country are all in the Sunbelt: Miami (where sellers outnumber buyers by 140%), Nashville (129%), Houston (124%), San Antonio (117%), and Austin (112%).

Meanwhile, Ohio is holding the line. Cincinnati and Columbus are modest buyer’s markets (37.2% and 40.5%, respectively), and Cleveland is one of the rare balanced markets in America. 

Gen Z buyers and remote workers, especially, are abandoning higher-cost Sunbelt metros for the Midwest, where median home prices often hover between $200,000 and $275,000—well below the national figure, which has surpassed $400,000. Cleveland’s median home price sits around $150,000, Realtor.com data shows, less than one-third of Miami’s $625,000.

“Perched on the southern shore of Lake Erie, Cleveland mixes Rust Belt grit with a genuine comeback story—from the world-class Cleveland Clinic to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, to revitalized neighborhoods like Ohio City and Tremont, where century-old homes sit next to buzzy breweries and restaurants,” according to Realtor.com. “It’s a city that punches well above its weight, and its real estate market is starting to prove it.”

The Sunbelt’s home price problem

The shift in leverage is showing up in prices, and that’s where Texas and Florida are taking the biggest losses—and it’s been that way for a while.

Data analysis from Lance Lambert, founder of ResiClub, published in April shows, at the time, home prices in the Austin metro sat 27.8% below their 2022 peak, while home prices in Hartford were 22.5% above their 2022 peak. 

“Some of that ‘bifurcation’ boils down to mean reversion, with many of the outright home price declines occurring in markets that overheated further during the pandemic housing boom,” Lambert wrote.

Nationally, home prices rose just 0.8% year over year between March 2025 and March 2026, per Lambert’s analysis of the Zillow Home Value Index, and 89 of the nation’s 300 largest housing markets posted year-over-year price declines in March. In Texas, Florida, and Colorado, active inventory at the time exceeded pre-pandemic 2019 levels, Lambert wrote, because the Sunbelt overbuilt. That means home prices will decrease or remain flat, he added. 

The Midwest continues to havee the opposite problem. New Redfin data shows Columbus home prices are up more than 7% year over year, with a median sale price of $301,000.

Toledo was also ranked the fourth-hottest housing market in the country by Realtor.com for 2026, with projected price growth of 13.1%. While Sunbelt sellers are slashing prices to clear inventory, Ohio sellers are watching their equity grow.

Climate, insurance, and the Florida exit

This change is also amplified by forces buyers can’t negotiate their way out of: climate risk, property insurance premiums, and rising HOA (homeowners association) fees.

Florida has been grappling with intensifying natural disasters, soaring insurance premiums, and rising condo HOA fees, which have prompted some homeowners to leave, according to Redfin. In fact, data from Insurify, show that the average annual premium in the Sunshine State is $8,292, about 181% higher than the national average.

Miami is also regarded as one of the weakest markets because it has a glut of condos, and owners across South Florida have been hit with hefty special assessments stemming from post-Surfside structural inspection laws. Texas has its own version of the problem: Property taxes and insurance costs driven by hailstorms, tornadoes, and Gulf hurricane risk have eroded the affordability math that drew millions of people there.

Why Ohio is winning

Ohio isn’t on many coastal buyers’ radar for lifestyle reasons, but it can make more sense on paper from an affordability standpoint.

Columbus has an average home price around $250,000, Zillow data shows, and Cleveland offers ownership costs that are actually lower than rent—a rare feat in today’s market. 

Cincinnati’s corporate base includes six Fortune 500 companies, from Kroger to Procter & Gamble. Meanwhile, Intel’s roughly $20 billion semiconductor project just outside Columbus is drawing talent, capital, and housing demand.

Danielle Andrews, a realtor with Realty One Group Next Generation, previously told Fortune she has recently worked with several Gen Z buyers—especially remote workers and young professionals—who are leaving higher-cost areas like Florida for more affordable housing.

“For many, it’s not just about cheaper homes, but about being able to build wealth earlier without drowning in overhead,” Andrews said. She also cited a StorageCafe statistic showing that Gen Z and millennials each accounted for nearly 30% of all interstate movers, with states like Indiana and Wisconsin seeing some of the biggest gains. 

The popularity of Florida and Texas isn’t going away entirely, but the pandemic premium that let Sunbelt sellers name their price is gone. In its place is a market where buyers, armed with inventory and leverage, are finally calling the shots.

A version of this story was originally published on Fortune.com on April 21, 2026.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com