Sales of luxury homes, driven primarily by free-flowing AI money, are surging in places like San Francisco and the Hamptons, while nonluxury sales are stalling out.

The median US luxury home sale price jumped to $1.39 million from February to April this year, a 3.6% year over year increase, compared to a 1.4% median price increase for nonluxury homes, according to a new Redfin report.

There’s no bigger boom than in the San Francisco Bay Area, ground zero for the AI race:

• Luxury prices in the area have risen 13.4% since November 2022 (when ChatGPT’s first model was released), while less-expensive properties in the same area have fallen 3.8%.
• In March, the median house price in the city of San Francisco reached a record $2.15 million.

Some SF real estate agents have argued that the steep spike in luxury homes can be chalked up to a correction after years of home price hibernation. But rents have also shot up in the last few years, driven by workers flocking back to the city to get a piece of the AI boom:

• The median monthly price of a one-bedroom apartment jumped over 21% in the last year to above $4,000, the biggest jump in the US, according to apartment-listing firm Zumper.
• A two-bedroom runs about $5,500 a month on average, tying the city with New York for the most expensive rent in the country.

On the other coast: The median property sale price in the Hamptons hit a record $2.34 million in the final quarter of last year. Realtors in the area say deep-pocketed AI workers are paying all cash and are willing to shell out $50,000 to make sure the fiber internet is top-tier. Luxury home sales are also proceeding at a good clip in cities like Tampa, West Palm Beach, and Miami.

Speaking of AI…it doesn’t have high hopes for mortgage rates dropping below 5% in the next five years.—MM

US and Iran exchanged drone strikes near Strait of Hormuz. Yesterday, the Treasury Dept. issued sanctions against the Persian Gulf State Authority, the entity newly formed by Iran to manage the Strait of Hormuz. The US also said it disabled four one-way drones that Iran launched over the strait. An anonymous US official who spoke to the New York Times said that the military led an airstrike against an Iranian drone ground-control station in Bandar Abbas, an important Iranian port city, before a fifth drone could be launched. Early this morning local time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said it retaliated by targeting the base from which the US strike on Bandar Abbas was launched.

Robinhood to let AI make trades, buy stuff for you. Yesterday, the company announced Agentic Trading and the Agentic Credit Card, which will allow users to connect their AI agents of choice to the tools to carry out investment or spending plans with limited human interaction. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said in a statement, “Our mission has always been to democratize finance for all, and now, that mission extends to AI agents.” Robinhood said that the agentic trading accounts are separate from a user’s main portfolio, require the user to set spending caps, and will give the user notifications about transactions, as well as the ability to immediately disconnect an agent from an account.

Roku gets dynamic home screen revamp. If you’re still unsure what Roku is or how it’s different from the other 12 apps on your TV, and also whether it’s a city, this news may or may not help you. The streaming service, which reaches over 100 million households, announced its first big design revamp in a decade. Among other new features, the change introduces a Roku home screen that shifts throughout the day, powered by AI-driven personalization, for Roku TVs and streaming devices. The company also introduced new ad slots on the home screen. Ad money accounted for most of the $4.74 billion in revenue that Roku brought in last year, according to Bloomberg.—HVL

Ford’s stock is surging…and it has nothing to do with Sam Elliott’s gravelly voiceovers on F-150 ads. Shares closed at a three-year high of $15.88 yesterday, continuing a run that started two weeks ago, when the automaker announced a new energy subsidiary that’s powering AI data centers.

The company is investing $2 billion in Ford Energy, which takes batteries made for electric vehicles and repurposes them as energy storage systems for power utilities, industrial businesses, and the data centers your neighbors are arguing over. With EV sales waning, Ford is giving the batteries a second life that has investors buzzing:

• Optimism abounds thanks to Ford’s partnership with China-based battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL).
• The bull run really took off when Morgan Stanley estimated that Ford Energy could be worth $10 billion.

Two days after that report, Ford announced a five-year deal to supply 4 gigawatt-hours annually for renewable power developer EDF, beginning in 2028.

Bottom line: While Ford surges through energy diversification, its competitors are headed in reverse—shares of GM, Jeep, and Stellantis are all down this year.—DL

Viewership of the world’s most prestigious English spelling competition is on the rocks, so its organizers are trying something neoteric (new). Tonight’s Scripps National Spelling Bee finals will be hosted by ESPN analyst and recent Celebrity Jeopardy! winner Mina Kimes, who plans to inject more sports-like excitement into the bee.

She’s known for providing in-depth explanations of the strengths and weaknesses of NFL players and coaches based on game footage. She prepared similarly for the bee: “These kids are elite competitors,” she told the Associated Press, adding, “the more you watch, the more you see the way their brains work.”

A fourth-quarter run could be exactly what’s needed by Scripps, the media company that runs the century-old competition:

• The bee’s television audience surpassed 1 million viewers for the 2012 finals, which aired on ESPN.
• Viewership started dipping before the pandemic, reaching only 559,000 in 2019.
• Scripps then moved the bee to its own broadcast networks, Ion and Bounce, in 2022. The finals got 488,000 viewers last year.

Final answer? Scripps also brought in Jeopardy! executive producer Michael Davies to lead this year’s broadcast, given how successfully he has expanded the trivia franchise since taking over in 2021.

Looking (hours) ahead…tonight’s finalists will compete for a ~$50,000 grand prize during the live event at 8pm ET.—ML

The online world can be a beautiful yet confusing series of tubes. On Thursdays, the Brew’s Molly Liebergall untangles them for you.

A nonsensical Gen Alpha meme has made its way to the head of the Catholic Church.

What happened: Pope Leo recently performed the viral “6-7” open-palm gesture at least twice—once for a group of thrilled young Catholic kids who taught him how to do it, and again a few days later while he motorcaded past a crowd.

Sure, these cross-generational moments of brainrot unity were heartwarming, but considering that mainstreamification is a death knell for memes, the pope’s participation could mark the final nail in the coffin for the gesture:

• Teenagers were already tiring of the trend by the end of 2025, when Dictionary.com named “6-7” as the Word of the Year, and fast-food restaurants added 67-cent and $6.70 menu items.
• Since then, “6-7” has existed in a mostly post-mortem state of occasional ironic callbacks.

But…the ironic phase of a meme’s lifecycle can sometimes restart the trend anew. The sincerity of the pope’s “6-7” performance could make or break that longevity.—ML