Bill Gates Makes Stunning Admission on Climate Change

U.S.-Japan rare earths deal

Grokipedia launch

Bill Gates’s climate admission

Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi signed the deal at Tokyo’s Akasaka Palace, targeting gaps in permanent magnets, batteries, and catalysts.

The pact commits both nations to joint project selection, streamlined permitting, and financial support for mining within six months.

A separate agreement vows a “new golden age” for the U.S.-Japan alliance.

Those deals secure no export quotas on rare earths to the U.S. and expand trade access.

Malaysia pledged $70 billion in U.S. investments amid China’s tightened October export curbs driving global price spikes.

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Trump said the U.S. and China are nearing a trade deal following negotiations on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit, with a pivotal meeting with Xi slated for Thursday. (DW)

China and ASEAN, reeling from Trump, inked an upgraded free-trade pact to deepen economic ties and expand market access. (RTS)

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett and former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh are seen as the two leading contenders to succeed Powell as Fed chair. (WSJ)

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon expressed confidence that the U.S. won't face a near-term economic slowdown. (BBG)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Tesla cracked autonomous driving by shunning costly lidar sensors in favor of a vision-based system, declares Morgan Stanley bull Adam Jonas, a contrarian bet that could supercharge the stock. (MW)

Vertiv is emerging as an essential AI infrastructure play, with data-center cooling demand poised to drive 25%+ annual earnings growth through 2027, making it a compelling buy, according to Seeking Alpha. (SA)

Three undervalued stocks—Intel, Pfizer, and Verizon—offer compelling entry points before October ends, with strong fundamentals poised for recovery amid market volatility, according to Morningstar analysts. (MS)

Berkshire Hathaway merits strong buy consideration with its fortress-like $300 billion cash pile and undervalued insurance operations, according to Motley Fool. (MF)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Amazon plans to cut 14,000 managerial jobs by early 2026, targeting a leaner structure that saves up to $3.6 billion annually. (YF)

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) maintained an undisclosed portfolio of at least 25 stocks, while her bid for a stake in marijuana dispensaries flamed out, drawing ethics scrutiny over potential conflicts. (WFB)

Oil executives, including Chevron's Mike Wirth, forecasted a 2026 low point for oil prices amid surging Permian Basin output exceeding six million barrels daily. (FOX)

Tom Hayes, the former UBS trader convicted as the face of the Libor scandal, has sued the bank for $400 million, alleging it scapegoated him to protect executives. (WSJ)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Indian refiners suspended new orders for Russian crude, which constitutes a third of their imports following U.S. sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil. (OP)

Thailand committed to $5.4 billion in annual U.S. LNG, crude oil and ethane purchases under a new trade deal. (FUT)

Google and Microsoft are reviving shuttered nuclear plants in Iowa and Pennsylvania, respectively, to meet surging electricity demands from their AI data centers. (ABC)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: China's central bank deems stablecoins a threat to financial stability and pledges intensified crackdown. (CN)

Coinbase partnered with Citi to explore digital payment solutions, including stablecoin payouts, for banks and institutional clients. (TB)

IBM launched Digital Asset Haven, a blockchain platform to empower financial institutions, governments, and corporations with digital asset services. (BBG)

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) cautions that Congress has mere months to advance crypto legislation before election-year politics derail momentum. (CT)

The site at grokipedia.com went live with a minimalist search bar and 885,279 articles, but crashed within hours before stabilizing that evening.

Many entries are currently adapted or copied from Wikipedia under Creative Commons, with xAI promising full rewrites by year-end.

Delayed last week to “purge propaganda,” the project stems from a David Sacks suggestion on the “All-In” podcast.

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Johns Hopkins researchers launched an AI-driven program that identifies prediabetes early and delivers personalized lifestyle coaching, cutting diabetes risk by up to 58% in high-risk patients. (JHU)

Qualcomm previewed AI accelerator chips—the AI200 and AI250—designed for data-center inference, touting lower operating costs and power consumption than Nvidia and AMD. (CNBC)

Meta appointed Vishal Shah, former head of its metaverse unit, to lead AI product management, signaling a strategic pivot toward accelerating generative AI initiatives. (FT)

Anthropic's Claude AI adds Excel integration for seamless spreadsheet querying and editing, alongside six finance-specific agent skills for earnings analysis and report drafting. (ZDNET)

Elon Musk donated $1 million to a Rome-based initiative harnessing AI for groundbreaking archaeological digs into ancient Rome, with Musk predicting it will "rewrite the history books." (TT)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Neuralink achieved a milestone by implanting its brain-computer interface in a paralyzed UK patient at University College London Hospitals, enabling him to control a computer with thoughts. (TN)

In a Shanghai showroom experiment, a small robot named Erbai exploited a security flaw to persuade 12 larger bots to abandon their posts, highlighting vulnerabilities in autonomous systems. (TOI)

Texas firefighters are testing FireBot, a robot designed to enter blazing structures, deploy hoses autonomously and battle infernos. (CNN)

Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood hailed humanoid robots as the "biggest of all" AI opportunities, outpacing robotaxis and healthcare applications. (CNBC)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Russia claimed a successful 8,700-mile, 15-hour test of its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, which Putin says can evade defenses and is ready for deployment. (TWZ)

Trump floated contaminated fuel as a potential culprit for back-to-back crashes of an MH-60R Seahawk and F/A-18F Super Hornet from the USS Nimitz in the South China Sea. (TME)

A UFO-tracking app has cataloged more than 9,000 sightings of unidentified submersible objects lurking off U.S. coastlines. (NYP)

Anduril and Poland's state-owned arms group PGZ inked a memorandum of understanding to locally produce the Barracuda-500M autonomous cruise missile. (DP)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Sequoia Capital launched a $750 million early-stage fund and a $200 million seed fund to fuel the next wave of breakout startups. (TFN)

Stablecoin startup ZAR raised $12.9 million led by a16z to pilot USD-backed coins in Pakistan, home to the third-largest unbanked population. (BBG)

Hypersonic startup Hypersonix Launch Systems secured a $46 million Series A round, led by High Tor Capital, to fund a test flight of its carbon-free SPARTAN scramjet vehicle and advance reusable Mach 5+ aircraft for defense missions. (SC)

Onfire AI secured $20 million in seed funding to deploy military-grade data analysis for pinpointing real-time demand in SaaS sales. (CALC)

In a new memo, Gates writes climate change won’t end humanity and temperature isn’t the best progress metric, calling near-term emissions goals a distraction from helping the poor adapt to heat, floods, and drought.

“Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise,” Gates wrote.

The billionaire is winding down the Gates Foundation’s $1.4 billion climate-adaptation program for farmers and dismantled Breakthrough Energy’s D.C. policy arm in March amid Trump’s USAID cuts.

Gates continues funding clean-energy startups via Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Catalyst, and Fellows, plus TerraPower’s newly approved advanced nuclear reactor in Wyoming.

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Just Stop Oil, the radical climate activist group, is beset by allegations of a toxic internal culture marked by sexual assault claims, bullying, and factional infighting. (TP)

Visa teamed up with identity tech firm Proof to roll out a biometric digital identity platform for payments. (RTN)

ExxonMobil sued California, alleging climate-disclosure laws requiring emissions reporting and risk assessments compel misleading speech in violation of the First Amendment.

Chamath Palihapitiya assailed Amazon's DEI hiring practices for favoring immutable traits over merit and skills, fostering inefficiencies and an oversized, underproductive workforce. (TU)