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|  |  | Thursday, September 10, 2025 | | Sponsored by |  |  | | Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images | Good morning, Quartz readers! | | HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW | Oracle stock surges 36% after a stunning $144 billion forecast. CEO Safra Catz hailed an “astonishing” quarter as AI cloud deals drove
huge gains in the company’s stock, stunning investors. | Klarna stock jumps as much as 30% on its IPO. The buy now, pay later giant’s long-awaited public offering signals renewed momentum for
IPOs as fintech companies look to win over cautious investors. | Apple plays the affordability card to distract from AI. The latest iPhones are more about specs than segments, but investors are happy the
upgrades keep moving while Apple still lags on AI. | Mortgage rates hit their lowest level in over a year. The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 6.5%, pushing more
borrowers to act, even as other uncertainties weigh on households. | Ozempic-maker Novo Nordisk will cut 9,000 jobs. As weight-loss drugs flood the market, the Danish pharma giant has a sweeping global
restructuring plan to cut roughly 11% of its workforce. | “No tax on tips” gives digital content creators a windfall. The law, part of Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” benefits podcasters,
social media influencers, adult entertainment creators, streamers, and more. | | | A MESSAGE FROM 1440 | .jpg) | NEWS. WITHOUT MOTIVES. THAT’S
1440 | Be the smartest person in the room by reading 1440, where 4.5 million Americans find their daily, fact-based news fix. They navigate through 100+ sources to deliver a
comprehensive roundup from every corner of the internet: politics, global events, business, and culture, all in a quick, 5-minute newsletter. It's completely free and devoid of bias or political influence, ensuring you get the facts straight. Subscribe to 1440 today. | | | CLOUD NINE-FIGURE DAY | Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison just pulled off the richest magic trick in history: $101 billion appeared in his bank balance before lunch. The company’s stock went vertical Wednesday after Oracle stunned Wall Street with an AI-cloud forecast that made investors practically levitate. The 44% surge shoved Oracle’s market value to nearly a trillion and Ellison’s personal fortune to $393 billion — meaning the 81-year-old software baron leapfrogged Tesla CEO Elon Musk to become the world’s richest
person.
Musk, meanwhile, is watching his crown jewels lose some sparkle. Tesla’s stock is down about 25% since December as sales sputter and his political alliance with President Donald Trump alienates consumers. That slide has shrunk Musk’s stake to a still-absurd $187 billion, but in billionaire musical chairs, “still absurd” isn’t enough. The billionaire who once sold Mars as the future is now getting lapped by the guy selling databases.
The irony is thick. Oracle, long dismissed as a legacy tech player, is suddenly the toast of Wall Street for riding the same AI wave that turned Nvidia into a $4 trillion colossus. Ellison isn’t promising Mars colonies or reinvented transportation. He’s promising the cloud — and right now, that’s what markets want to buy. Musk may still dominate headlines, but Ellison is dominating balance sheets, and that’s the metric that counts. Ellison has the cloud — and the cloud is raining money. Quartz’s Alex Daniel has more on the oracle of Oracle. | | NOT FED AND BURIED — YET | President Donald Trump tried to fire a Federal Reserve governor via social media, but Tuesday night, a federal judge reminded him that the central bank isn’t an episode of “The Apprentice.” U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb froze Trump’s move to oust Governor Lisa Cook, leaving her in her seat just in time for next
week’s high-stakes policy meeting. The ruling didn’t just preserve Cook’s vote — it preserved the idea, however frayed, that the Fed is something more than a presidential staffing chart.
Trump’s case rests on accusations that Cook misrepresented two mortgages years before she joined the Fed, a technicality his lawyers inflated into “for cause” grounds. Cobb wasn’t buying it. The Federal Reserve Act, she wrote, is “best read” as limiting removals to
misconduct while in office — not to ancient paperwork. Adding insult to injury, the administration announced Cook’s firing online before even handing her the charges, a due process violation that made the whole thing look less like governance and more like theater. If this were a courtroom drama, the judge might have thrown the script back at the writers.
| | | A MESSAGE FROM 1440 | | NEWS. WITHOUT MOTIVES. THAT’S
1440 | Be the smartest person in the room by reading 1440, where 4.5 million Americans find their daily, fact-based news fix. They navigate through 100+ sources to deliver a
comprehensive roundup from every corner of the internet: politics, global events, business, and culture, all in a quick, 5-minute newsletter. It's completely free and devoid of bias or political influence, ensuring you get the facts straight. Subscribe to 1440 today. | | | MORE FROM QUARTZ |
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