Raphael Stevens

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    Trump Jr. dismisses crypto conflicts of interest, says dad’s not checking blockchain ledgers

    The Trump-backed crypto company World Liberty Financial is not a political organization and concerns about conflicts of interest are “complete nonsense,” Donald Trump Jr. tells CNBC.
    “I don’t think anyone actually believes that my father … would be looking at ledgers on the blockchain to see who bought what, and that carrying any kind of favor,” he said. 

    Donald Trump Jr. and Zach Witkoff of World Liberty Financial at Token2049, a prominent crypto conference in Singapore, on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025.

    Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday dismissed criticism that a crypto venture tied to his family had any potential conflicts of interest, as his firm, World Liberty Financial, seeks global investors.
    Concerns that World Liberty Financial investors may be seeking favor with the Trump administration are “complete nonsense,” Trump Jr. told CNBC on the sidelines of Token2049, a prominent crypto conference in Singapore.

    “I don’t think anyone actually believes that my father or [Zach’s] father would be looking at ledgers on the blockchain to see who bought what, and that carrying any kind of favor,” he said. 
    The U.S. President’s eldest son, who is a co-founder of World Liberty Financial, was accompanied at the event by the firm’s CEO Zach Witkoff, son of Steve Witkoff, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East under the Trump administration.
    Witkoff, who was involved in his father’s real estate business before World Liberty Financial, echoed the sentiment. “Don and my World Liberty mission is big, but our dads’ mission is much bigger. They’re not focused on stablecoins, nor are they involved in a stablecoin business,” he said. 
    The company — first founded in September 2024 — launched its stablecoin six months later. The token, dubbed USD1, is pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by short-term U.S. government treasuries. It also has a publicly traded “governance token,” or the crypto version of a shareholder vote, called WLFI. 

    Critics have questioned the company’s open connections to the Trump administration as it pursues deals abroad and expands into areas such as debit payments and tokenized commodity assets.

    Trump Jr. and Witkoff downplayed their political connections during a keynote speech at the crypto conference, emphasizing that their firm, which they say is seeking to improve and democratize finance, is “100% not a political organization.” 
    According to World Liberty Financial’s website, a Trump-affiliated firm called DT Marks DEFI LLC, along with members of the Trump family, receives a major share of the platform’s revenue and holds WLFI tokens.
    However, it also states that Donald Trump, his family or any members of the Trump Organization or DT Marks DEFI LLC are not an “officer, director, founder, or employee of, or manager, owner or operator of Word Liberty Financial or its affiliates.”
    The growth of the company comes against the backdrop of the President’s embrace of the crypto industry in his second term. 
    Once a skeptic, Trump has rebranded himself as a “crypto president,” backing policies welcomed by the industry and appointing long-time crypto advocates, such as David Sacks, to his cabinet.
    Trump also launched his own meme coin, called $TRUMP, in addition to his involvement with World Liberty Financial.
    Democratic lawmakers, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Representative Maxine Waters, have led calls for investigations into World Liberty Financial, labeling the company an “unprecedented conflict” that could sway crypto policy.
    Correction: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Zach Witkoff’s name. More

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    Don’t tax wealth

    France is in a giant fiscal hole. This year the government will run a deficit, where its spending exceeds its revenues, of €160bn ($190bn, or more than 5% of gdp). Investors in its bonds are nervous; politicians need to close the gap. Left-leaning economists, and a growing number of centrist ones, believe that a wealth tax is part of the answer. Gabriel Zucman of the Paris School of Economics, for instance, has proposed an annual levy of at least 2% on fortunes larger than €100m. Although the arguments of economists today are subtler than those normally used to support levies on wealth, they are just as wrongheaded. More

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    Credit markets look increasingly dangerous

    Mention 2007 to a group of professional investors, and watch them bristle. The year was a bad one. It marked the end of the great moderation—a long period of low inflation and steady economic growth that began in the 1980s—and the start of strains in credit markets which became the global financial crisis. More

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    How the Trump administration learned to love foreign aid

    Nobody expected President Donald Trump to save a country from financial crisis. Yet on October 14th he will meet Javier Milei, Argentina’s president and an ideological ally, to discuss the details of a rescue package. America has already promised Argentina a swap line worth $20bn—an amount representing half the South American country’s foreign reserves—in order to address investors’ fears about the durability of Mr Milei’s currency reforms, which had sent the peso tumbling. Treasury officials are also considering a raid on the Exchange Stabilisation Fund, a stash of dollars that was last used to assist a foreign country in 2002. More

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    SK Hynix shares hit multidecade highs, Samsung also surges as chipmakers partner with OpenAI

    Shares of Samsung hit their their highest since January 2021, rising over 4%, while SK Hynix stock surged more than 9% to hit its highest since 2000.
    The partnership will “focus on increasing the supply of advanced memory chips essential for next-generation AI and expanding data center capacity in Korea,” OpenAI said.

    Headquarters of Samsung in Mountain View, California, on October 28, 2018.
    Smith Collection/gado | Archive Photos | Getty Images

    Shares of South Korean chip heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix surged Thursday, a day after the two companies partnered with artificial-intelligence major OpenAI as part of the U.S. firm’s Stargate initiative.
    Shares of Samsung hit their their highest since January 2021, rising over 4%, while SK Hynix stock surged more than 9% to hit its highest since 2000.

    OpenAI said in a statement that this partnership will “focus on increasing the supply of advanced memory chips essential for next-generation AI and expanding data center capacity in Korea.”
    The ChatGPT-maker said the two chipmakers plan to scale up production of advanced memory chips, which are critical to power its AI models.
    The announcement came as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman met with South Korean president Lee Jae Myung in Seoul, and the top leaders at Samsung and SK Hynix.
    Earlier this month, SK Hynix had announced that it was ready to mass-produce its next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips, cementing its leading position in the AI value chain.
    HBM is a type of memory that is used in chipsets for artificial-intelligence computing, including in chips from global AI giant Nvidia — a major client of SK Hynix. 

    HBM4 chips are expected to be the main AI memory chip needed for Nvidia’s next-generation Rubin architecture — a more powerful AI chip for global data centers.
    SK Hynix has been a main chip supplier to Nvidia, while rival Samsung has reportedly been working to get its HBM4 chips certified by Nvidia. 
    — This is breaking news, please check back for updates. More

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    Record EV sales lead GM, Ford to 8% increases in Q3 U.S. auto sales

    Ford said sales of all-electric vehicles increased by 30.2% during the period to a fresh quarterly record of more than 30,600 units.
    General Motors and Hyundai said EV sales more than doubled during the quarter.
    EV sales during the third quarter are expected to be a record, ahead of federal incentives of up to $7,500 ending in September.

    Ford Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning on display at the New York International Auto Show on March 28, 2024.
    Danielle DeVries | CNBC

    DETROIT – Strong electric vehicle sales are leading to robust third-quarter results for major automakers, as consumers flocked to car dealerships before the end of $7,500 in federal incentives for EVs.
    Ford Motor, General Motors and Hyundai all reported record quarterly sales of all-electric vehicles from July through September.

    Both GM and Ford said third-quarter sales overall increased roughly 8% from a year earlier, with EV sales more than doubling for GM. Ford said sales of its EVs increased by 30% compared with the third quarter of 2024.
    Hyundai reported its namesake brand recorded a 13% year-over-year sales increase during the third quarter, also led by doubling sales of all-electric vehicles.
    Japan’s largest carmakers that don’t offer many EVs reported varying results for the quarter. Toyota Motor — the world’s largest automaker — said its quarterly sales increased 16%, while Honda Motor’s sales fell 2% from a year earlier. Nissan Motor reported an increase of 5.3%.
    Chrysler and Jeep parent Stellantis reported a roughly 6% sales increase during the third quarter compared to a year earlier, as the carmaker continues a turnaround plan to reverse a yearslong decline in U.S. sales.

    GM said it remained the top automaker in U.S. sales through the third quarter of this year, with the Detroit company estimating a market share of 17.2% – its highest position since 2015.

    “No one is in a stronger position for a changing U.S. market than GM. We have the best lineup of ICE and EV vehicles we’ve ever had, and our brands have grown market share with consistently strong pricing, low incentives and inventory,” GM North American President Duncan Aldred said in a release.
    GM on Wednesday estimated the industrywide sales pace for the third quarter was 16.7 million to 16.9 million units — higher than some earlier industry estimates, led by gains in EVs.
    U.S. EV sales during the third quarter are expected to be a record, as buyers pulled ahead plans to purchase a new zero-emissions vehicle ahead federal EV incentives of up to $7,500 ending in September.

    GM’s 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV during a media launch event for the vehicle in Detroit, May 16, 2024.
    Michael Wayland / CNBC

    Ford CEO Jim Farley on Tuesday said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if sales of EVs fell from an industry market share of around 10% to 12% this month — which is expected to be a record — to 5% after the incentive program ends.
    Cox Automotive forecasts sales of EVs hit 410,000 during the third quarter, up 21% from a year earlier. That would easily be the highest amount of EVs ever sold in a quarter in the U.S., as well as a record 10% market share.
    Sales of EVs as well as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that also qualified for federal incentives are expected to assist in boosting third-quarter vehicle sales up between 4% and 7%, according to forecasts from Cox and CarMax’s Edmunds.
    Some automakers are trying to keep their EV sales momentum going after the end of the tax credit. The incentives expired as part of the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which stripped the old enticement but included some perks for buying a U.S.-assembled vehicle, regardless of it being an EV.
    Hyundai on Wednesday said it is reducing pricing for its 2026 Ioniq 5 EV by up to $9,800 and offering a $7,500 cash incentive on 2025 models, matching the federal credits.
    “We’re very bullish when it comes to EV sales in the marketplace,” said Randy Parker, CEO of Hyundai Motor America, adding the brand is evaluating pricing on other models as well. “There’s going to be a little bit of a reset in October, probably even November, but the EV market will settle, and at that point, we view this as an opportunity. … We’re not backing off.”
    GM and Ford also essentially extended the use of a $7,500 U.S. tax credit on leases of electric vehicles, Reuters reported Monday, by rolling out programs to their retailers under which the automakers’ financing arm would initiate the purchase of EVs in dealers’ inventory by making down payments on them. More

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    The eccentric investment strategy that beats the rest

    One tendency veteran money-managers often share is a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance. This is because without it their job would be a nightmare. Clients know that outsize returns come from taking risks, and want them to do so, but then balk when they lose money. Research is essential for gaining an edge, but a good chunk of even the best analyst’s ideas will fail to turn a profit. And of course, the most carefully built portfolio—with each position backed by a solid thesis and weights fine-tuned to the basis point—can be trounced by one that might have been slapped together in five minutes. More

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    Dollar claws back losses from U.S. government shutdown, turns slightly higher

    Jackal Pan | Moment | Getty Images

    The dollar was little changed Wednesday, recovering from earlier declines, as traders weighed the potential fallout from a U.S. government shutdown.
    The dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s performance against six rival currencies including the euro and the Japanese yen, was last up just 0.02% at 97.79. Earlier in the day, it fell more than 0.2%, putting it on pace for its worst annual decline in 22 years.

    The U.S. government shut down after the Senate short-term funding bill failed to pass, and Democrats led by Senate minority leader Sen. Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries push for a measure to extend enhanced Obamacare tax credits. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, threatened benefit cuts for “large numbers of people” if an agreement wasn’t reached.

    Stock chart icon

    Dollar index year to date

    “Historically, shutdowns have corresponded with a weaker USD, though primarily against safe haven currencies” such as the yen, Swiss franc and euro, wrote FX analyst Daniel Tobon of Citigroup. “Given persistent [U.S. dollar] pessimism in the current market narrative, further increased U.S. political uncertainty should also pressure the USD lower. However, a quick resolution to the shutdown could lead to limited follow-through, keeping us in similar ranges to recent months.” More