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Friday, July 25, 2025 | |
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| Grant Smith/Construction
Photography/Avalon |
| Good morning, Quartz
readers! |
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HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW |
| The president
visits the Federal Reserve. The trip was part of Trump’s pressure campaign against Fed Chair Jerome Powell over costly renovations at the central bank's headquarters. |
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| What Washington can
learn from abroad. As Trump goes after Powell, Turkey offers lessons: In 2018, Erdogan wrestled back control of his country’s central bank — and it was a disaster. |
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| Trump unveils his AI action plan. It pushes for U.S. dominance through military contracts and deregulation but stumbles on vague goals, potential political bias,
and infrastructure limits. |
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| Christmas toys could suck this year. Some toymakers are stripping out batteries, accessories, and certain features as the president’s tariffs continue to drive costs up for companies. |
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| American Airlines could lose money. Despite posting a record quarter — reporting its highest-ever revenue — the airline warned that macro weakness would likely affect it in Q3. |
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| UnitedHealth is under federal investigation. The DOJ is probing the health insurer’s Medicare program, and the company says that it is complying with the criminal and civil investigation. |
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AI THREATS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW |
AI is racing ahead in 2025. Companies? Not so much. According to a recent Stanford Index Report, AI-related security incidents shot up by 56.4% last year. From data breaches to algorithmic failures, the AI risks are piling on. Yet many company leaders are still way behind the curve. A staggering 73% of companies
experienced an AI security incident last year, often discovering vulnerabilities after they’d already caused very real damage. Perhaps most alarming: CEOs are still treating AI risk like it’s just a tech glitch, ignoring the much bigger, much messier operational and reputational fallout.
What's maybe worse is that the most critical risks aren't tech issues alone — they’re people issues. Take the rise of deepfake scams: using AI to fake identities, infiltrate companies, and steal
sensitive info. Or how about coding errors that bloat software with unnecessary, risk-prone lines of code? And don’t forget the big one: AI systems spiraling out of control, creating unintended consequences that no one saw coming. “This is happening now,” said Tim Armandpour, CTO at PagerDuty, and the situation is only getting more complicated.
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TESLA'S FUTURE GETS A REALITY CHECK |
For years, Elon Musk has been the CEO with the Midas touch, spinning promises of futuristic technologies — robotaxi fleets, thousands of humanoid robots — into stock market gold. But during Tesla’s
second-quarter earnings call, that magic almost seemed to have run out. Gone was Musk’s usual hype-fueled optimism. Instead, the CEO sounded almost… deflated. “We’re in this weird transition period,” he admitted. The investor reaction was swift: The stock slid around 9% during the day, and the usual fervor for the Tesla dream started to feel a little, well, dated.
Analysts weren’t particularly impressed, either. Revenue sank 14% year-over-year to $22.5 billion, marking the company’s
steepest drop in over a decade. Free cash flow? A staggering 89% plunge. Musk’s high-wire act of betting big is starting to look less like a forward-thinking strategy and more like a series of expensive promises that haven’t quite paid off. Meanwhile, rivals are showing the world what real progress looks like. With competition heating up and Musk sounding somewhat unsure, Tesla’s road to the future is looking like a far bumpier ride than Wall Street had hoped.
So what’s left for
Tesla? In the short term, it doesn’t look like much. But in the long-term? Well, we’ll see. Analysts are holding out hope for the “AI revolution” that Musk is betting on, though they might be getting a little tired of waiting. At least Musk was honest about one thing: Times are tough, and they might get tougher. He didn’t have his usual swagger, but maybe that’s exactly what investors needed to hear. Still, it’s hard not to wonder if this might all be a case of “too little, too late.” Quartz’s Shannon Carroll has more on how Tesla might need a new master plan. |
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A MESSAGE FROM NOOM |
|
LOSE THE WEIGHT FOR GOOD |
Weight loss isn’t one-size-fits-all. That’s why Noom has created millions of personalized plans. Tailored to your life and your goals, Noom gives you the knowledge and support you need for long-lasting change. Ready to take the quiz and see your custom plan? |
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