Amid plunging stock prices and a staggering 71 percent profit drop, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is pivoting back to his day job. “My time obligation to DOGE will drop significantly,” Musk told investors Tuesday after the company’s Q1 earnings report attributed a “changing political sentiment,” among other factors, for a precipitous drop in business. The report did not go into specifics. It declined to highlight Musk’s singular role in decimating the federal government, flirting with Nazi salutes, trying—and failing—to buy a state Supreme Court seat. Nor did the report directly...

Critics of President Donald Trump's steep new tariffs have been warning that a variety of bad things could occur if he doesn't reconsider, from inflation to a deep recession to a weakening of the U.S. dollar to burning bridges with longtime U.S. allies all over the world. But on Monday, April 21, another troubling possibility was raised: "empty shelves" at major retail chains. According to Axios reporters Marc Caputo and Ben Berkowitz, the CEOs of three major retail chains — Target, Walmart and Home Depot — "privately warned" Trump "that...

For Nikki Porcher, the past few months have been mentally exhausting. Before the election, she did her research, reading Project 2025 front to back. Still, she has been surprised by Trump’s first 100 days. “A lot of stuff that is happening, I knew was coming down the pipeline. However, I did not know it would happen so quickly, so swiftly and so immediately,” Porcher said. Porcher founded the Atlanta-based nonprofit Buy From A Black Woman to support Black women-owned businesses through events, funding, educational programs and its online business directory....

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Tuesday that China’s decision to block the exports of rare earth magnets in response to President Trump’s tariffs will slow the rate of production for the company’s Optimus robots, which are set to perform human daily functions. Musk said the rare earth magnets are needed for the arm of the robots in order to allow the machine powered by artificial intelligence (AI), to fit in small spaces. China has approximately 44 million metric tons of rare earth metals, making it the largest reserve on Earth...

Democrats are pressing the acting inspector general for Social Security for answers about how changes to the agency’s operations under the Trump administration are impacting services, while raising concerns about potential disruptions in benefits.

President Donald Trump’s abrupt shift in rhetoric Tuesday toward Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell reflected the private lobbying of some of his senior advisers, who had urged the president to back off his incendiary attacks on the central bank, three people familiar with the matter said. On Monday, the stock market fell precipitously as Trump attacked Powell as a “major loser,” fueling speculation that the president would move to fire the Fed chief. But by Tuesday afternoon, Trump appeared to dial back his rhetoric, saying he had “no intention...

A business in an industrial complex has been destroyed, but no homes in Ocean County have suffered damage as a result of a large wildfire that broke out on Tuesday. Liberty Door & Awning on Old Shore Road in Lacey was destroyed during a fire that as of late Tuesday had burned 8,500 acres and was only 10% contained. Kevin Lowe, the plant manager of neighboring business Johnson Screens, said he and coworkers realized the seriousness of the fire at about 5 p.m. Tuesday. They saw large plumes of white...

Maple Finance is quietly becoming one of the most important bridges between decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance. Co-founded by Sidney Powell in 2021, the institutional crypto lending platform has facilitated over $5 billion in loans and is increasingly positioning itself as the infrastructure layer for tokenized private credit — a sector TradFi is rapidly embracing. After a turbulent few years for crypto credit markets, Maple has staged an impressive comeback.

President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs are putting many businesses, jobs and the at risk. They’re affecting not only long-term relationships with trading partners, but an intricate web of ecosystems and supply chains. The California business owners and groups grappling with the tariffs — wine shop owners, winery founders, farmers — say the precise effects on their industries are unclear so far. They hope there will be an upside. But for those who have a broad view of trade, things look grim. The Port of Los Angeles and the Port...

As tariffs put new pressure on homebuilders, and cuts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development disrupt federal funds for affordable housing, one New York City developer is looking to jumpstart growth using a novel financing strategy. With a $20 million donation, the nonprofit Volunteers of America-Greater New York has seeded what the group is calling a Housing Innovation Fund that’s designed to help pay upfront costs for affordable housing projects. It’s part of a wider push to leverage philanthropic dollars in the earliest stages of the development process,...