FOR THE past two years, the Middle East has been an even more tense place than usual. Houthis bombed commercial vessels; Israel began extensive military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon; Iran and Israel exchanged rockets. Yet oil markets remained calm, since the worst-case scenario—a full-blown war between Israel and Iran—was avoided. More
The Federal Reserve’s inspector general is reviewing the Trump administration’s attempts to lay off nearly all Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees and cancel the agency’s contracts, CNBC has learned.
The inspector general’s office told Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Andy Kim that it was taking up their request to investigate the moves of the consumer agency’s new leadership, according to a June 6 letter seen by CNBC.
The Fed IG office serves as an independent watchdog over both the Fed and the CFPB, and has the power to examine agency records, issue subpoenas and interview personnel. It can also refer criminal matters to the Department of Justice.
Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russell Vought attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 10, 2025.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
The Federal Reserve’s inspector general is reviewing the Trump administration’s attempts to lay off nearly all Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees and cancel the agency’s contracts, CNBC has learned.
The inspector general’s office told Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., that it was taking up their request to investigate the moves of the consumer agency’s new leadership, according to a June 6 letter seen by CNBC.
“We had already initiated work to review workforce reductions at the CFPB” in response to an earlier request from lawmakers, acting Inspector General Fred Gibson said in the letter. “We are expanding that work to include the CFPB’s canceled contracts.”
The letter confirms that key oversight arms of the U.S. government are now examining the whirlwind of activity at the bureau after Trump’s acting CFPB head Russell Vought took over in February. Vought told employees to halt work, while he and operatives from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency sought to lay off most of the agency’s staff and end contracts with external providers.
That prompted Warren and Kim to ask the Fed inspector general and the Government Accountability Office to review the legality of Vought’s actions and the extent to which they hindered the CFPB’s mission. The GAO told the lawmakers in April that it would examine the matter.
“As Trump dismantles vital public services, an independent OIG investigation is essential to understand the damage done by this administration at the CFPB and ensure it can still fulfill its mandate to work on the people’s behalf and hold companies who try to cheat and scam them accountable,” Kim told CNBC in a statement.
The Fed IG office serves as an independent watchdog over both the Fed and the CFPB, and has the power to examine agency records, issue subpoenas and interview personnel. It can also refer criminal matters to the Department of Justice.
Soon after his inauguration, Trump fired more than 17 inspectors general across federal agencies. Spared in that purge was Michael Horowitz, the IG for the Justice Department since 2012, who this month was named the incoming watchdog for the Fed and CFPB.
Horowitz, who begins in his new role at the end of this month, was reportedly praised by Trump supporters for uncovering problems with the FBI’s handling of its probe into Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Meanwhile, the fate of the CFPB hinges on a looming decision from a federal appeals court. Judges temporarily halted Vought’s efforts to lay off employees, but are now considering the Trump administration’s appeal over its plans for the agency. More
A Gamestop store is seen in Union Square on April 4, 2025 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
GameStop shares slid on Thursday after the video game retailer and meme stock announced plans for a $1.75 billion convertible notes offering to potentially fund its new bitcoin purchase strategy.
The company said it intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, “including making investments in a manner consistent with GameStop’s Investment Policy and potential acquisitions.”
Part of the investment policy is to add cryptocurrencies on its balance sheet. Last month, GameStop bought 4,710 bitcoins, worth more than half a billion dollars.
The stock tanked more than 15% in premarket trading following the announcement.
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GameStop is following in the footsteps of software company MicroStrategy, now known as Strategy, which bought billions of dollars worth of bitcoin in recent years to become the largest corporate holder of the flagship cryptocurrency. That decision prompted a rapid, albeit volatile, rise for Strategy’s stock.
Strategy has issued various forms of securities including convertible debt to fund its bitcoin purchases.
CEO Ryan Cohen recently said GameStop’s decision to buy bitcoin is driven by macro concerns as the digital coin, with its fixed supply and decentralized nature, could serve as protection against certain risks.
The brick-and-mortar retailer reported a decline in fiscal first-quarter revenue on Tuesday as demand for online gaming rose. Its revenue dropped 17% year-over-year to $732.4 million.
The shares fell 6% on Wednesday after those results. Wall Street appears uncertain it can mimic the success of MicroStrategy.
Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter reiterated his underperform rating on GameStop Wednesday, saying the meme stock has consistently capitalized on “greater fools” willing to pay more than twice its asset value for its shares. The Wedbush analyst believes the bitcoin buying strategy makes little sense as the company, already trading at 2.4 times cash, isn’t likely to drive an even greater premium by converting more cash to crypto. More
What do you stand to inherit? It still feels like a question from a different age, despite its growing importance today. In 2025 people across the rich world will inherit some $6trn, or around 10% of GDP—a figure that has climbed sharply in recent decades. French bequests have doubled as a share of national output since the 1960s; those in Germany have tripled since the 1970s; Italian inheritances are now worth around 20% of GDP (see chart 1). More
On June 1st Ukraine took military raiding into the 21st century. It did so with little more than ingenuity and 117 drones, which emerged from trucks across Russia—everywhere from Siberia to the Chinese border—and destroyed a dozen or so planes in Vladimir Putin’s long-range air fleet. The raid came amid the Russian president’s relentless bombardment of Ukraine. On June 9th he launched his biggest drone strike of the war, sending 479 machines to hit Ukrainian airfields, cities and factories. More
Shenzhen-based camera company Insta360 went public Wednesday on Shanghai’s tech-heavy STAR Market in the board’s largest raise to date.
The company counts the U.S. as one of its biggest markets, contributing roughly the same amount of revenue as mainland China and Europe.
It’s a sign of how China-based companies are still eager to expand globally despite geopolitical tensions.
The Insta360 One R displayed in a container of water at the Insta360 booth during CES 2020 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Jan. 8, 2020.
David Becker | Getty Images News | Getty Images
BEIJING — Chinese companies are so intent on global expansion that even the biggest stock offering to date on Shanghai’s tech-heavy STAR board counts the U.S. as one of its biggest markets, on par with China.
Shenzhen-based camera company Insta360, a rival to GoPro, raised 1.938 billion yuan ($270 million) in a Shanghai listing Wednesday under the name Arashi Vision. Shares soared by 274%, giving the company a market value of 71 billion yuan ($9.88 billion).
The United States, Europe and mainland China each accounted for just over 23% of revenue last year, according to Insta360, whose 360-degree cameras officially started Apple Store sales in 2018. The company sells a variety of cameras — priced at several hundred dollars — coupled with video-editing software.
Co-founder Max Richter said in an interview Tuesday that he expects U.S. demand to remain strong and dismissed concerns about geopolitical risks.
“We are staying ahead just by investing into user-centric research and development, and monitoring market trends that ultimately meet the consumer[‘s] needs,” he told CNBC ahead of the STAR board listing.
China launched the Shanghai STAR Market in July 2019 just months after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans for the board. The Nasdaq-style tech board was established to support high-growth tech companies while raising requirements for the investor base to limit speculative activity.
In 2019, only 12% of companies on the STAR board said at least half of their revenue came from outside China, according to CNBC analysis of data accessed via Wind Information. In 2024, with hundreds more companies listed, that share had climbed to more than 14%, the data showed.
“We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. More and more capable Chinese firms are going global,” said King Leung, global head of financial services, fintech and sustainability at InvestHK.
Leung pointed to the growing global business of Chinese companies such as battery giant CATL, which listed in Hong Kong last month. “There are a lot of more tier-two and tier-three companies that are equally capable,” he said.
InvestHK is a Hong Kong government department that promotes investment in the region. It has organized trips to help connect mainland Chinese businesses with overseas opportunities, including one to the Middle East last month.
Roborock, a robotic vacuum cleaner company also listed on the STAR board, announced this month it plans to list in Hong Kong. More than half of the company’s revenue last year came from overseas markets.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year, Roborock showed off a vacuum with a robotic arm for automatically removing obstacles while cleaning floors. The device was subsequently launched in the U.S. for $2,600.
Other consumer-focused Chinese companies also remain unfazed by heighted tensions between China and the U.S.
In November, Chinese home appliance company Hisense said it aimed to become the top seller of television sets in the U.S. in two years. And last month, China-based Bc Babycare announced its official expansion into the U.S. and touted its global supply chain as a way to offset tariff risks.
New phase of expansion
Chinese companies have been pushing overseas in the last several years, partly because growth at home has slowed. Consumer demand has remained lackluster since the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the expansion trend is now evolving into a third stage in which the businesses look to build international brands on their own with offices in different regions hiring local employees, said Charlie Chen, managing director and head of Asia research at China Renaissance Securities.
He said that’s a change from the earliest years when Chinese companies primarily manufactured products for foreign brands to sell, and a subsequent phase in which Chinese companies had joint ventures with foreign companies.
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Insta360 primarily manufactures out of Shenzhen, but has offices in Berlin, Tokyo and Los Angeles, Richter said. He said the Los Angeles office focuses on services and marketing — the company held its first big offline product launch in New York’s Grand Central Terminal in April.
Chen also expects the next phase of Chinese companies going global will sell different kinds of products. He pointed out that those that had gone global primarily sold home appliances and electronics, but are now likely to expand significantly into toys.
Already, Beijing-based Pop Mart has become a global toy player, with its Labubu figurine series gaining popularity worldwide.
Pop Mart’s total sales, primarily domestic, were 4.49 billion yuan in 2021. In 2024, overseas sales alone surpassed that to hit 5.1 billion yuan, up 373% from a year ago, while mainland China sales climbed to 7.97 billion yuan.
“It established another Pop Mart versus domestic sales in 2021,” said Chris Gao, head of China discretionary consumer at CLSA.
The Hong Kong-listed retailer doesn’t publicly share much about its global store expansion plans or existing locations, but an independent blogger compiled a list of at least 17 U.S. store locations as of mid-May, most of which opened in the last two years.
The toy company has been “very good” at developing or acquiring the rights to characters, Gao said. She expects its global growth to continue as Pop Mart plans to open more stores worldwide, and as consumers turn more to such character-driven products during times of stress and macroeconomic uncertainty. More
It must be tempting to give up. Those tasked with reviving Britain’s stockmarket have long faced a difficult task and a steady drip of bad news, as one firm after another departs for private ownership or America. It will still have hit like a bucket of cold water to learn, on June 5th, that Wise intends to move its main listing to New York. More
A group of 42 state attorneys general are calling on Meta to curb the rise of investment scams on Facebook that fraudulently use the images of Warren Buffett and other famous figures, New York Attorney General Letitia James said.
James said in a news release criminals are consistently evading Meta’s automated and human review systems to post fake ads that leave retail investors saddled with millions of dollars in losses.
The ads, touting access to Buffett, Elon Musk or Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood, lure Facebook users to join chat groups on Meta-owned messaging platform, WhatsApp, according to the New York AG.
New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference at the office of the Attorney General on July 13, 2022 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
A group of 42 state attorneys general are calling on Meta to curb the rise of investment scams on Facebook that fraudulently use the images of Warren Buffett and other famous figures, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday.
James said in a news release criminals are consistently evading Meta’s automated and human review systems to post fake ads that leave retail investors saddled with millions of dollars in losses. Her office continues to see the scams months after reporting them to Meta, she added.
The ads, touting access to Buffett, Elon Musk or Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood, lure Facebook users to join chat groups on Meta-owned messaging platform, WhatsApp, according to the New York AG.
There, users are unwittingly involved in alleged pump-and-dump schemes, where criminals boost the price of thinly traded stocks and quickly sell for a profit, leaving small investors with losses.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is struggling to control the rise of cyber scams on its platforms and is a “cornerstone of the internet fraud economy,” the Wall Street Journal reported last month. The problem is global in nature, with one notable lawsuit being brought by an Australian billionaire who alleges that Meta’s artificial intelligence-run advertising program created and amplified false ads using his likeness.
“Thousands of Facebook users have lost hundreds of millions of dollars to these scams and Meta must do more to stop these fraudulent ads from running on its platforms,” James said. “I am leading a bipartisan coalition calling on Meta to step up its review of ads to stop these scams. I also urge all New Yorkers to be extra careful before putting their money in investments they see advertised on social media.”
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Source: New York State Attorney General’s office
The AGs urged Meta to boost its policing of ads, including with more human review, saying that unless they curb the scams, Meta should stop running investment ads altogether.
Joining James were AGs from states including California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Andy Stone, a spokesman for Meta, said that addressing scams on its platforms requires collaboration between banks, governments, law enforcement and telecom companies.
“We’re committed to doing our part: Investing in technology to aggressively enforce against scams, including testing the use of facial recognition technology, empowering people to protect themselves with on-platform warnings and tools, educating consumers on common schemes and forging partnerships across tech, banking and beyond to protect people from these criminals,” Stone said. More
