Forbes Daily: Inside Trump's Escalating Feud With Fed Chair Powell
UnitedHealth stock fell 22.4% Thursday after reporting it missed targets for revenue, earnings per share and future earnings outlook. It was otherwise a mild day for stocks, but UnitedHealth's historic loss (its worst since 1998) weighed heavily on the Dow, which fell by 1.3%.
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A federal judge ruled Thursday that Google violated antitrust laws to maintain a monopoly in the publishing ad server and ad exchange markets, a decision that comes after a separate August ruling that found the tech giant illegally maintained a monopoly with its search engine. Thursday's ruling could allow prosecutors to request Google break up its advertising products, though the company says it will appeal.
While fears of a sharp economic downturn due to President Donald Trump's tariff policies are pervading Wall Street, the head of the International Monetary Fund said Thursday that the border-spanning organization does not project a recession this year. Still, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the United Nations agency IMF, said the fund made 'notable markdowns' to its global economic growth forecasts due to trade disruptions, warning that 'high uncertainty raises the risk of financial market stress.'
President Donald Trump and Jerome Powell in 2017.
President Donald Trump notably escalated his long-running feud with Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell on Thursday, calling for his 'termination' in a Truth Social post, which suggests a faster timeline for the end of the top-ranking central banker's term than its scheduled conclusion in May 2026. While Trump originally tapped Powell for the Fed chief role in 2017, he quickly soured on him, and wanted to remove him as early as 2018. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has reportedly advised Trump that firing Powell risks upending financial markets, according to Politico.
In a move historically reserved for travel to China, some international business travelers are bringing burner phones to the U.S. to protect their information from surveillance by a hostile country—which, in the view of some Europeans, is what the U.S. has become under the second Trump Administration. Many countries have issued new travel advisories for their citizens traveling to the U.S., including Canada, China, France, Germany and Denmark.
In just the past month, the Trump Administration has revoked more than 1,300 student visas, and it appears poised to restrict new visa approvals. And while a drop in foreign student enrollment on U.S. campuses will impact colleges' cash flow, it also endangers a large ecosystem of businesses that bring those students to the country—including recruiting firms, travel services, insurance providers and businesses that evaluate international academic credentials.
MORE: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the department would terminate $2.7 million in grant funding for Harvard University on Wednesday, and also wrote to the university demanding 'detailed records' on known illegal or violent activity by Harvard's foreign student visa holders. Noem also threatened to pull the school's certification to enroll international students.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the Trump Administration is prepared to abandon efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine if no significant progress is made in the next few days. Meeting with European and Ukrainian leaders in Paris, Rubio said that the president has 'dedicated a lot of time and energy to this,' but there were other 'really important things' which deserve 'just as much, if not more attention.'
Precision Neuroscience, a company created by a cofounder of Elon Musk's Neuralink, cleared an important hurdle Thursday as the FDA approved a core component of the company's brain implant. Precision says it will now expand its research program for the implant—which the company claims could assist patients with severe paralysis—and a spokesperson told Bloomberg the company expects to bring its device to market in 2026.
Illustration by Philip Smith for Forbes
In just the past month, the Trump Administration has revoked more than 1,300 student visas, and it appears poised to restrict new visa approvals. And while a drop in foreign student enrollment on U.S. campuses will impact colleges' cash flow, it also endangers a large ecosystem of businesses that bring those students to the country—including recruiting firms, travel services, insurance providers and businesses that evaluate international academic credentials.
MORE: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the department would terminate $2.7 million in grant funding for Harvard University on Wednesday, and also wrote to the university demanding 'detailed records' on known illegal or violent activity by Harvard's foreign student visa holders. Noem also threatened to pull the school's certification to enroll international students.
'A lot of people are threatened by us because they don't understand how we are doing it,' says James Kim, Stiiizy's CEO. 'That's the missing piece from the corporate guys—they don't know the consumer.'
When Stiiizy was founded in 2017, it launched in California's gray market days before the state legalized recreational marijuana. Today, the once-scrappy startup has grown into a legal unicorn worth $1.5 billion—and it's not only California's biggest cannabis retailer, it's the best-selling weed brand in the U.S.
The early start is what set Stiiizy apart, according to Daniel Yi, their former chief marketing officer. 'They had the advantage of huge momentum, and seemingly endless cash reserves.'
But with success, came legal troubles and rumors of black-market operations. Stiiizy vapes began showing up in New York's unlicensed market, and were even spotted south of the border in Mexico City. Cannabis investors and executives who have worked in California's industry for over a decade say the rumors of Stiiizy diverting products into the illicit market are so pervasive that it has become an 'open secret.'
'They are not the best rule followers in the world,' says one cannabis executive who asked to remain anonymous.
Tak Sato, Stiiizy's president, denies the allegations and says that the company '100%' does not operate illegally, adding that when Stiiizy products are found in unlicensed stores or on the black market that they are either counterfeits or smuggled from California by people who buy them in licensed dispensaries.
All of the notoriety has not hurt Stiiizy's sales. In fact, its outlaw reputation seems to have had the opposite effect. Stiiizy is for stoners, not soccer moms and the so-called 'canna-curious.' While many weed brands have been developed in boardrooms, or by former corporate consultants, and look like something sold at Whole Foods, Stiiizy came of age in the unregulated weed world of Downtown LA, giving the company just the right amount of outlaw attitude.
'I think a lot of people are threatened by us because they don't understand how we are doing it,' says CEO and cofounder James Kim. 'I don't even know how we're doing it, but I think I just know the consumer. That's the missing piece from the corporate guys—they don't know the consumer.'
WHY IT MATTERS
With nearly $400 million in sales in California alone last year, Stiiizy controls about 7% of the Golden State's $5 billion legal cannabis industry. 'They are an insane brand, the consumer passion for them is just mind-blowing,' says Kyle Sherman, the CEO and founder of cannabis dispensary software company Flowhub. 'They have executed better than any other brand in the industry.'
MORE Cannabis 42.0 2025
Eli Lilly revealed that a clinical trial of its once-daily weight loss pill showed effectiveness similar to injectable GLP-1 weight loss drugs, such as Novo Nordisk's Ozempic. Orforglipron is the first GLP-1 drug in pill form to successfully complete a phase III trial:
16 lbs: Study participants who had the highest dosage lost this much weight on average, over the 40-week trial
14%: The increase to Lilly's share price Thursday
8%: The decrease to competitor Novo Nordisk's share price Thursday
The 'Great Wealth Transfer' is underway, sort of. Broadly, it is estimated that the Baby Boomer generation will transfer more than $53 trillion to its heirs through 2045, but generational dynamics will certainly play out differently in every family. Some Boomers subscribe to a 'Die With Zero' philosophy, while others want to stay prepared for rising healthcare costs, living expenses and longer lifespans. And of course, not all Boomers are flush—26% have less than $50,000 saved.
After a blockbuster earnings report Thursday afternoon, which company appears to have established itself as a potential safe haven stock amid fears of an economic slowdown?
A. Anheuser-Busch InBev
B. Netflix
C. Spotify
D. Roku
Check your answer.
Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Chris Dobstaff and Caroline Howard.
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Visitors to the U.S. on business and tourist visas may have to pay $15,000 bonds
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Close-up of a person's hand holding an iPhone and using Google AI Mode, an experimental mode utilizing artificial intelligence and large language models to process Google search queries, Lafayette, California, March 24, 2025. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images) Image Credits:Smith Collection/Gado / Getty Images Google's new blog post also attempts to move the goal posts a bit about what it means for websites receiving Google's clicks. Now, instead of counting clicks, it wants publishers to think about click quality. The company says average click quality has increased, and Google is sending 'slightly more quality clicks' to websites than a year ago. (Google explains that a quality click is one where users don't quickly click back — they stay and read.) How much of an increase, though, Google doesn't say. The company only points out that when people click through on an AI response to the source, they're more likely to dive deeper, so those clicks are more valuable. What's more, Google paints AI as an opportunity for web publishers to gain increased exposure, saying that '…with AI Overviews, people are seeing more links on the page than before,' as Reid writes. 'More queries and more links mean more opportunities for websites to surface and get clicked.' But AI, while a growing referral source, isn't yet making up the difference in terms of clicks, reports have shown. One recent study from Similarweb indicates that the number of news searches on the web resulting in zero clicks to news websites has grown from 56% (when Google launched AI Overviews in May 2024) to 69% as of May 2025. Image Credits:Similarweb Google appears to knows this is a trend, too, as it recently launched a product for publishers that helps them monetize their dwindling traffic in other ways that don't rely only on advertising, like micropayments or newsletter sign-ups. The fact that Google is pushing this 'AI is not the end of search traffic!' PR now only makes the situation seem more dire. It's as if Google wants publishers to believe not what their own eyes — and graphs and charts — tell them, but instead take comfort in the fact that Google still sends 'billions of clicks to websites' every day, just as the post claims.
