Plus: Clay, A Secret Weapon For Anthropic And OpenAI, Boosts Valuation To $1.3 Billion |
Good morning,
President Donald Trump isn’t wasting any time on his promise to “drill, baby, drill.”
One of his first acts was to declare a National Energy Emergency, which allows him to use federal powers to boost production and cut energy prices. He also repealed a number of former President Joe Biden’s executive orders aimed at the oil industry, including the 2021 cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline and a pause on permits for new liquefied natural gas export projects.The U.S. is already the world’s largest oil and natural gas producer, but Trump seems to be convinced that prices and demand will increase enough to entice drillers to even further raise their output.
Let’s get into the headlines, |
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| A historic winter storm blanketed the south Tuesday, bringing once-in-a-lifetime snowfall to many places that typically don’t receive it, days after much of the U.S. suffered its coldest temperatures of the season. Around 40 million people were under some type of weather hazard on Tuesday, with parts of New Orleans receiving up to eight inches of snow and snowfall in Texas topping six inches. Oracle was the most notable winner in the stock market’s first day of trading under President Donald Trump’s second term, adding more than $30 billion in market value as Trump later unveiled a massive AI infrastructure partnership between Oracle, OpenAI, Nvidia and SoftBank. The “Stargate” project includes a $100 billion investment in U.S. infrastructure for the first year and $500 billion over the next four years. |
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| | | Clay, A Secret Weapon For Anthropic And OpenAI, Boosts Valuation To $1.3 Billion |
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| Kareem Amin, CEO of New York-based startup Clay, spent years in pursuit of a grand vision of making programming more accessible for everyone. But after years of chasing the biggest impact that seemed possible, one unglamorous application of Clay’s software resonated above all others: an AI-enabled filter on various data sources that surfaces better sales leads into a catch-all spreadsheet that makes it easy to figure out every other tool used by a prospect, or to find every potential buyer who previously worked at a certain company. Today, Clay works with more than 5,000 customers including AI businesses Anthropic and OpenAI and software unicorns Canva, Ramp and Rippling. After increasing tenfold in the previous two years each, sales were up 6x for 2024, giving the startup about $30 million in revenue for 2024 at a minimal loss. Investors—who once had to defend their bets on the business—are now eager to pour more funds into Clay. The most recent: A new $40 million investment in Clay that values the business at $1.25 billion—more than doubling its valuation in six months. Clay’s trajectory to fast-growing unicorn status after years of a slow burn has proven early backers prescient. But how Clay uses generative AI—both within its own product and through AI agents used by customers—makes it stand out as an early success story for businesses looking for real-world use cases of a new technology that generates dollars, not just hype. |
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| Helping companies sell might not be jaw-dropping work. But every business has to do it. And for Clay’s CEO Amin, letting go of the pressure to build something huge allowed him to build something useful. “Every company needs to grow, and they need to grow in a way that is very specific,” Amin said. “We co-create that with them.” |
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 | | Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved |
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President Donald Trump did not get tens of billions of dollars richer after the launch of a meme coin in his name, despite some reports suggesting as much as a $58 billion windfall for the president. That figure is essentially based on the idea that existing tokens will retain their same value as more supply is unlocked over the next three years, but that’s not a sure bet given how financial assets typically lose value as their supply increases.
MORE: The crypto that Trump has already offloaded, however, did bolster his fortune, adding hundreds of millions of dollars in liquid assets to his balance sheet. Before the crypto mania, he had an estimated $413 million on his balance sheet, alongside more than $500 million of legal liabilities, but his second term is already proving more lucrative than any in American history. |
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| WEALTH + ENTREPRENEURSHIP |
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 | | Guerin Blask for Forbes |
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| Real estate mogul Charles Cohen’s core assets—Manhattan office buildings—have struggled to recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. At least six of his buildings sit more than 20% empty, and he’s struggled to make payments on at least $1.1 billion in debt, according to loan filings. All of that has dealt a blow to Cohen’s fortune: Forbes now estimates he’s worth $1.6 billion, down from a peak of $3.7 billion in 2022. |
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| Payments startup Highnote’s first product was software that allows businesses to quickly issue customizable debit cards, credit cards and more. Now the San Francisco-based fintech company has raised $90 million, giving it a valuation of more than $750 million, and it plans to invest more heavily in a new product: software that will let businesses accept online credit and debit payments. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday temporarily pausing the federal ban on TikTok, and access to the app was restored before he even took office, but Apple and Google’s app stores still haven’t restored TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps. The tech companies could still open themselves to legal liability if Trump were to reverse course and start enforcing the ban, potentially facing $850 billion in fines. |
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| President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders after taking office, reversing a number of former President Joe Biden’s policies and following through with his plans to delay the TikTok ban, restrict illegal immigration and increase American energy production. He ordered mass deportations of anyone in the U.S. illegally, the elimination of all federal government DEI programs and the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, to be run by Elon Musk. Some of his executive orders are expected to face legal challenges, with the ACLU already suing to block his order halting birthright citizenship. |
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| Netflix is raising prices starting in the next billing cycle, following other streaming services that have raised prices in recent years. The company also revealed its largest-ever quarterly increase in subscribers in its fourth quarter earnings: |
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$17.99 | The new price for a standard plan without ads, up from $15.49 | |
| Over 300 million | The total Netflix subscriber base | |
| October 2023 | The last time the streaming company hiked prices in the U.S. |
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| New graduates are at a disadvantage in the job market, with 89% of HR leaders saying they avoid hiring recent graduates, according to one survey. To land your first job, highlight examples of your real-world experiences, like leadership in extracurricular activities or volunteer work. Be sure to note any technical skills or courses you took to your résumé, and if you don’t have any, look into online courses or read professional development books. Give concrete examples of your soft skills, too—like communication or creativity—and share how you would approach the role from day one. |
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| GAMES | | QUIZ | | Nominations for the 2025 Academy Awards will be unveiled Thursday. The director of which film could be the lone woman to secure a Best Director nomination this year? | | A. | “Emilia Pérez” | | B. | “The Substance” | | C. | “Wicked” | | D. | “A Complete Unknown” |
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